campaigns since 1980. but a senior correspondent, white house correspondent on nbc and abc. in between them i have dozens and dozens of years of political expertise. so let's start. ..

it's tougher for him but he clearly made that more possible by what he did in the debate? >> it is possible for romney to win and you discover that by looking state-by-state which is the reason that before the debate i would have said that romney had little chance. before the debate we saw him falling off a cliff. the romney folks themselves will tell you heartening support for the president, softening support for romney. now you were seeing the reverse. now you are seeing all these moving to the top. >> i thought beforehand, i was somewhat a greater chance the romney could win. wind. simply because there was a serious state polls just before the debate and they show that it was closing. after romney had a bet of september as you could have

which kind of confirms my belief that there is a lid on obama ceiling, that because of the poor economic record there is a limit to how bloated and committed to obama people are and now i would say, still agree with my colleagues that i think obama is the favorite that i think it's more like 55-45 and i think it's very clear, still somewhat difficult but a much clearer path to romney winning the presidency. >> let's talk about the debate for a moment. based on your comments and sources what went wrong or the -- what went wrong for the president and how did romney become the super debater? we hadn't seen romney in the prior few months or so in terms of being assertive and authoritative. what happened in the white house and what happened with romney? >> i like jay leno's line that only the nfl replacement refs thought that romney one.

[laughter] and to keep that metaphor going, the president looks to me like the team that was vastly overconfident that didn't fear or respect his opponent and didn't take it terribly seriously and conversely the romney eyes off with somebody i hadn't seen in a long time. it was the romney i saw when he was running for the u.s. senate in massachusetts back in 1994, kind of a pragmatic problem solver, nonideological. i would have put them at the 35-40-yard line but i think he was for the first time in his whole campaign he was being who he was as opposed to pretending to be somebody that he wasn't. >> i think of "the new yorker" cover card with romney standing there in an empty chair behind the obama -- a little harsh but i think that is what are people came away and believe. i think it's still hard to understand really what happened with the president. we all know he has cool,

somewhat distant demeanor and i think that explains some of it but it also seems to reflect, as charlie just said, that the president didn't take it, didn't take romney as seriously as as a threat as you should have but to the reason i'm having a hard time understanding that is clearly his campaign is that romney is a great debater. you could watch romney's debate against senator kennedy and in 2002 against his opponent in the massachusetts governor's race. he comes prepared and he has his talking points and he looks at the camera. he is a very effective, make the very effective presentations of the idea that they didn't know that was coming i have a hard time understanding. i'm trills -- still trying to understand what happened. >> i see and that's writing in addition to that when you're president and this is why ronald reagan losses first debate on why george w. bush lost his first re-election debate.

if you are brought, it's arguably longer than that but anybody -- nobody really tells you what to think and he just -- that is way we saw the president physically taken aback as romney went at him. the romney folks, the new months ago that the debate prep would be the manhattan project of their campaign, that was where they were going to flip the switch if that had any possibility and we saw a romney whose family for a long time have been encouraging the campaign, to let him be more of himself, to be less scripted. he resisted that so we saw him all come out. the problem for him now, he has to do it two more times and there are number of countries who will tell you one problem is you only get one speak attack.

[laughter] >> i will on to apologize to any of the ambassadors who are insulted by mike. [laughter] david letterman because one of the things hearing the obama camp's series of excuses and explanations for his performance, david letterman did the top 10 excuses and number five i think was mitt romney's hair is mesmerizing. [laughter] number two was ask osama bin laden how i did and number one was it is bush's fault. [laughter] i wasn't the least bit surprised that romney did as well as he did. he did 23 debates in the republican primaries that lasted 43 hours. i know because i participated in six or seven of them and when he comes with a brief, and he knows what he has to do, he is an extraordinarily effective

debater. i think that particularly after newt gingrich took him down in south carolina. he came back and they had a debate in florida and this really was the key moment as to whether or not romney was going to be able to hold on and win the primaries or whether gingrich might blow by him. he took gingrich apart so i wasn't surprised with the high-stakes he would do just great. i can't say i was all that surprised by obama. i was surprised he did as badly as he did but it reminded me so much of 2004. i covered -- i was in the room at the first kerry/george w. bush debate in coral gables florida and it was exactly the same thing. carried him really prepared and was tremendously effective and bush looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. this was the debate where he was talking about saddam hussein and kerry said that saddam hussein did not attack us on 9/11.

it was al qaeda, it was bin laden and bush said i knew that. [laughter] i think that one, no matter how hard they are told to prepare as mike said they are not used to somebody talking to them like that in public or in private. i think also they are so used to dealing with the world's problems and the idea that they will have to sit there and sing for their supper and have another job interview somehow feels beneath them and no matter how often they are told by their advisers yeah but that is the deal, they don't get it through their head. >> quickly and is going a point that chris made about romney's presentation. he had done five mock -- something else we saw the reason romney was so good and underappreciated is the rising -- of senator rob portman republican of ohio.

he was brought into play the role of obama but has become a much broader adviser. we talked about, we have heard about he is a little lonely on the trail and portman sort of feel bad and gave them a lot of confidence and he is now become a bigot pfizer on messaging stagecraft. we saw that full package come together in the debate. >> is there any regret for romney not picking portman for his vice president and is a bit of help or hindrance to the ticket? >> why don't you ascus and 12 hours? [laughter] >> well today, why didn't romney -- whited romney picked ryan and he was thought to be the favorite candidate because he was from iowa. >> it was someone that no one wanted to pick. the only time of the copy the romney organization want to pick paul ryan was mitt romney and he picked -- mitt romney pick paul

ryan for a simple reason insisting reason he went to the olympics when a lot of his advisers told him he shouldn't and that is, he wanted to. he was the ceo of the campaign and he has is his own karl rove. that has caused them a lot of problems, business and personal. he is the product, not the ceo but that is how we set it up. they feel good about the ryan choice now and the main reason they gave republicans excitement which they desperately needed. if it caused them problems -- [inaudible] >> i would put it a little differently. romney had a really bad summer. he had a bad trip to europe and he came back, i think there was a real discomfort in terms of where the campaign was and where things were headed and he wanted to shake things up and he didn't feel like this was the time for a safe choice like a portman or a pawlenty into just sort of

shake it up. i think two groups of people were really excited about the pic of paul ryan. one was conservative republicans and the other word congressional democrats and congressional democrats come we can finally make the ryan plan a big deal i don't think it it is ended up being that much of a positive or negative. it moved romney's up about two points nationally briefly and then it dissipated and close things up a little and wisconsin briefly and then kind of subtle but down or go so i think it is has actually been fairly neutral so far but nobody was going to move the needle. i don't think portman would have mood -- moved the needle in ohio. >> i am graywith charlie. i think at that point in the campaign things had not been going so well. this was a way to excite the conservative base. you are going with someone who conservatives had complete confidence in. he was the banner carrier for the budget plan and the plan to

tackle the entitlements and this was a way to do it. and i think it did momentarily create headaches for them especially in florida and places where seniors are important. but i think is their regret? no, you don't hear that on the campaign. >> i am i just add, i think there is this tension in the romney campaign and has been for some time between some people who believe that he needs to run a safe campaign. he needs to run and is called the referendum idea. this is a referendum on barack obama and all he have to do is to indict his economic record and present myself as a credible alternative. other people have wanted it to be a big campaign about big issues into competing visions and more for choice election and this is one particular case and i certainly agree with mike, this is a romney decision not a staff decision but romney

wanted -- and he is fluctuated back and forth even after he was not particularly consistent and i think you saw this in the debate. to make it about bigger issues and competing visions for the country and he wants to take us in this direction and that is why this is a bad idea or go ryan helps him make the bigger argument about where to take the country. >> the white house staff, when you talk to them privately, are they actually worried that they could lose this election are they are not worried anymore? >> i think they are certainly more sober than they were before although when you talk to them they'll say, we always knew that this was going to tighten up. we always knew florida was going to be tough, virginia was going to be tough. i think the new north carolina was going to me may be out of reach but they are still trying. michelle obama was there a day or two ago. >> unemployment is just drop between eight -- beneath a present in the markets are. if you go back six or eight weeks ago and prior to that, i

think the obama campaign, they were extremely aware that they had a very very ugly economy and incumbents generally don't get reelected when these kinds of economy so i think they were -- and facts to me there would always come across as hungrier and more aggressive than the romney campaign. in almost every respect, so i think they were ready for is. >> which is what makes the debate so important. >> not the campaign. >> the campaign has been hungry. they have been aggressive. look at the advertising, really smart advertising. >> who is really running the obama campaign? is it david axelrod or is it plouffe or is it obama? is the family intervening and are they running it or who is running the campaign? >> the white house side, david plouffe was the campaign manager

in a weight when they were underdogs. now the senior dicer of the white house -- what you hear is that he has pretty well the last word on most things both in the campaign and at the white house. jim messina the campaign manager in chicago runs that vast organization day today. on the romney side you have romney, ceo and people look back at the campaign, whether he came from behind or whether he lost, like a big factory that people will look at. he could have created a campaign that has such fuzzy lines of accountability and such fuzzy lines of responsibility and yet the sort of campaign management plan and strategy plan. what people close to governor romney say is that was deliberate. he likes having the last word. he likes having the -- in hand

and as george w. bush would say he would be the decider. >> good evening is running the campaigns? >> i don't know today who is running the campaigns, but you know the strategy, the messaging and advertising, to be honest he is a nice guy but frankly i think he has been completely misguided from the first day. if this is a referendum and was to be a referendum up or down on president obama and the economy there still was a threshold level of comfort and trust that people had to have in the alternative and when the romney campaign decided to focus everything from, soon as they won the nomination, on economy, economy economy without building him up, undecided voters in the swing states knew nothing about mitt romney other than he was a rich successful businessman. they had no sense of whether he was a trustworthy person,

someone with whom had the values they would want in the oval office and the romney campaign did not go when with the campaign traditionally would do with biographical testimonial ads back in june to kind of put some meat on the phone said he could reach a threshold level of comfort with voters. so the obama campaign comes in, bain capital, plant closings, layoffs, outsourcing, income tax returns, cayman islands in the bermudas. they took a baseball bat and beat romney's brains and in the six or seven swing states and that is why his numbers are upside down and that is why he has had so many problems until now. why they did that i don't know. i've been asking that question since june and i just think it was a huge miscalculation and the romney campaign family intervention that politico reported the other day basically tried to introduce him. this is what they should've done

and the intervention that was reported was that mrs. romney and tad romney the oldest son of mitt romney went to his father and said you have to change things. is that the essence of of the? >> yeah and the family have wanted to take the charlie cook approach and alluded to the fact that their big bad from the beginning, the stuart steven sperry, the chief strategist very in the campaign was that all you had to be was not obama and that turned out to be wrong. you see it in the different channels they are doing now. no, you have to be yourself and not just not obama. >> let me quickly explain because i suspect a lot of you don't know who the stuart stevens is. hatha view were not alive and would know who stuart stevens is. stuart stevens is a republican strategist from mississippi, very interesting guy, at one time was a hollywood producer.

all the ambassadors here like him. he also took steroids at one point to see the effect it would have on his ability to do extreme sports. he's a very interesting guy but clearly was first among equals in the romney campaign for a long time, very much espoused his theory of this is an election on the economy and all we have to do is beat the other guy. it's a referendum on obama. there was growing frustration in the campaign as particularly post-nomination, they seem to not work as well and romney seemed to fall further behind. it seems, with all due respect i am told that the family intervention story is somewhat -- that depends on who you are talking to -- oversoul but

clearly there has been a change. i think stuart stevens is still important. i think his star has somewhat eclipsed and i think other people, former republican national chairman, longtime operative nick gillespie, and told his star is rising. and he has taken a more conventional it's us versus the other guy choice election. >> to finish on the debate questions. one, what will the president did differently and how will romney prepare for a different obama and tonight we have the vice presidential debate so let's talk about the presidential debate first in what would you expect to see obama do differently next time and how would romney beat repair to do with that essentially? >> i think obama will need to show up. the debate is the week from today. it's a different format which makes his job frankly tougher because he is not going to be the moderator, the candidate. this is a town hall meeting.

it's going to be moderated by candy crowley of cnn. there are going to be undecided voters had who have been chosen by gallup who are going to be there. it sent hosej hostetter university in hempstead, long island new york so it's the job of the president both to make the background and reassure the people who are with him and the undecided voters that you really -- he really is in this thing and he really wants to be reelected and he does have an argument to make against romney romney but he has got to do it in the context of answering the questions of these voters because that is the format, that is the structure of the debate. it's a trickier challenge for him than just a straight on debate. the third debate by the way which is the week after monday after his foreign-policy which is another set of issues. >> the debate, we will see a different obama and we will see it different romney? what will we see a next debate would you say? >> will see more of the obama we have seen on the trail. morbid president obama who will

be held back forward ever reason. now he realizes yuval suggested he has to show that he is hungry as his campaign. george w. bush is to say you have to ask the people for the vote. we will see president obama doing that. >> the vice presidential debate tonight, is this going to be a relevant? do people really care who the vice presidential debate winner is? what would you be looking for tonight? >> i think there should be disclaimer across the tv screen. this is for entertainment purposes only. [laughter] it will not affect the election, unless of course it does. no, think it will be great fun to watch but the test is this. if lloyd bentsen destroys dan quayle had no effect on the campaign, what will? >> and you took my line. i was actually the moderator of that debate.

[laughter] and as charlie said, it was the memorable line and made all the headlines and had no effect whatsoever on the outcome of that election. >> i think it's going to be fascinating and i agree with charlie, more for entertainment and the impact on the campaign but these guys couldn't be less alike. joe biden is almost 70. he is a classic, old-school liberal politician. paul ryan is 42 years old. he is the new, young gun conservative policy wonk politician. it's a martian and a moon man and i think it will be enormously entertaining to watch. i wouldn't just write it off that it will have no impact. first of all, let's say interestingly enough looking back palin/biden got a bigger audience than the first obama mccain debate just because people were so fascinated with sarah palin.

this probably will not get 67 million people but let's say he gets 40 million or 50 million comets still a lot of eyeballs and i think what you will see biden do is go after brian, not romney split ryan's record and some of the budget proposal he is debated in the past and the ryan plans and say that is the real romney. not what you're hearing now but that is what romney will do if he becomes president. he will cut this program and lower this tax and it will be interesting to watch how ryan pivots off of that and says no, those were my ideas and then tries to go on offense and say basically your ideas don't work and that is why the economy is where it is. >> let's talk a moment about the senate and the house. the senate is now controlled by the democrats and the republicans have tried for some time to pick up enough to gain control. charlie you're the expert in this. will republicans gain control of the senate and what is the likely event?

>> a year or year and a half ago i would have said a 60 to 77% chance of the republicans taking the majority and now i think they are down around 40 a thing. todd akin emissary decided to become a biology instructor. [laughter] some places where republicans had great candidates like hawaii and mexico they haven't done as well as expected in florida was a disappointment. where democrats had a 53 seats the republicans had 47 so the republicans beta three c. gain and vice president paul drake -- paul ryan would break the tie, four seats if they don't. effectively its 52-48 so republicans need two or three seats after you factor in nebraska. there are 10 tossups, five democratic, five republican. i think the day after the election, don't think we will be sure who is going to be a

majority in the senate. i would give democrats a little bit of an edge but when you have 10 races that are effectively within three points and one thing about senate races that happens, on election day even if you take out the wave of elections like 06 and i wait for democrats and 2004 republicans they don't right down the middle. two-thirds of them tend to break one way or the other. it's like dominos and they tend to break one-way board and the other. >> you say we won't know because the race is so close? >> when this group, when the seats were up last to know six you had missoula montana and virginia three states that effectively decided the majority in the senate and 4.8 billion people voted in those three states. they were decided by 60,600 boats and it was well into the day before -- >> who would control the senate either of you?

>> the other and of the telescope we think whoever gets the white house will get the senate. that is today we would say that they were his president obama and today you say democrats are likely to keep the senate. if governor romney, it's a very narrow path when you look state-by-state. if governor romney wins the presidency that will mean there is a wave behind him, that there is some lift to him and that will bring in a couple of the senate candidates enough to put them over. >> chris? >> well just so you understand charlie cook has forgot more about the senate races than i ever knew. he is the bible and one of the reasons people beforehand, a year ago, six months ago thought that the republicans weren't so sure as he pointed out 2006 was the way the election and democrats won in a lot of places like montana that you would expect them to win so as they went in and correct me if i'm wrong, visit democrats were defending 23 seats in the

republicans only 10. just by the nature of the mathematics it seems likely the republicans would pick up seats in the democrats would look 23-10 but right now the conventional wisdom in the charlie cook wisdom is probably less than 50/50 that the republicans will take the senate. >> talking about the house for a moment. the houses controlled by the republicans and democrats have picked up a lot of seats. can the democrats regain control of the house? >> it's a longshot and democrats needed 25 seat net gain. at the end of world war ii only one party, the party of the white house picked up 15 seats in a presidential election year and that was when lyndon johnson was destroying barry goldwater so in other words not even a nixon 72 r. reagan 84 landslide did they get out of the single digits. for democrats to net 25 they are probably going to lose 10 of their own seats.

they have to gross 25 and net 25 and i think it's pretty and mike lee. >> the white. >> the white house is assuming the president is elected he is dealing with a republican house of representatives. >> do you all a great? >> i want to represent myself with the remarks of mr. cook. >> who is going to win in massachusetts, senator warner or senator brown? >> scott round has to get 100% of the republican vote in 100% of the independent vote and one out of five democrat votes. in other words maybe 200,000 obama voters have to split the ticket to vote for republican for the senate. i think it will be an extremely close race but i think scott brown is a trip to candidate and ran a great campaign but it's a little uphill. it's close but i would give warren a little bit of an edge. i don't think frankly irked campaign is very good or she is very strong.

>> i can make a prediction but i think warren is helped enormously by the president in massachusetts. species seems to have a growing edge. she has more -- raised more money than people thought that she would. it such a difficult state and a presidential year. in 2004 it was the bluest date in the nation except for d.c., had poor democratic votes. massachusetts had the highest democratic percentage and very difficult. scott brown has been hurt by the debate. it's very difficult to debate someone of a different gender. he feels a lot less pressure this time and it would be hard to be appropriately deferential. scott brown has had that problem and elizabeth warren has gone out every single time, referred to her as professor warren and he has this nice guy image going

for him that he he is los. >> i think to make a projection about the biggest upset you seen the senate is the most unlike the win by somebody that no one is expecting now? >> the biggest surprise to me as connecticut where lindemann and is running a little bit ahead of the democrat congressman murphy. given that she spent $50 million in a great republican year and came up short last time, but it's almost as if the voters have sort of gotten over the west wing thing. it's like old news. they have moved on in a note there is a lot more moving parts in the election than that but that is the biggest surprise to me so far. >> she is running a very different campaign than the one she ran less last time. the interesting race is richard carmona in arizona the former u.s. surgeon general. under president bush and he is running as a democratic the democratic candidate for the senate.

we don't know that, we can't predict he's going to win but he has made it much more of a race than people expect a. >> akin is also a surprise, after he played biology professor and everybody thought he was dead and he would drop out. karl rove and american crossroads in the national republican senate republican campaign committee has imported time into the campaign and people like that romney said he should drop out and everybody thought he would drop out and if you didn't he would drop off the cliff and is still a reasonably close race. if i had to bet i would still bet on claire mccaskill winning but it's not the walkover people thought it was going to be. >> can i say something real quick? there was a great -- for james carr will describe pittsburgh in the west in alabama in between. that kind of works in missouri. st. louis and kansas city in the west were based democrats in alabama between. i'm sorry mike.

>> it's not a surprise but just to reference the other marquee senate race here in virginia tim kaine the former governor looks very strong. that is a real problem for mitt romney. he needed a stronger george allen. at the moment came look strong and that's a real worry. >> let's assume what you more or less say is likely to happen in the house will stay republican in the senate might stay democratic. do you expect in any leadership changes in either the senate or the house and republicans or democrats? anybody likely to be challenged or do you think will see no change? >> i think no change. the only way i think the house can see change is if republicans and i really really really don't think this will happen, if republicans lost more than 15 seats in the house. i think boehner could have a problem but i think it's owing to be more single digits so i don't think we will have a problem at all.

>> whoever's the present of the united states will have to do deal with the lame-duck session in congress and we have the fiscal issues. what is likely to happen and let's assume obama is reelected. what do you think will happen at then and let's assume romney selective. what do you think will happen in the lame-duck then? >> so much depends of course on who is elected and what the margin is and who is going to take which senate seat. i see a holding action in the lame-duck with nothing definitive unless the president or mitt romney comes in with a very convincing when and just has the kind of sort of moral authority that comes with a wave election either direction. right now, i don't think we see that. chris said maybe it could happen. no, i'm sorry, mike said maybe it could happen for romney if the stars are in alignment. >> yeah my guess is for all the talk on the fiscal cliff it will

be pushed off for six months and in addition if you had a wave election and i thought it was interesting what boehner said the other day, that he had a problem with the idea. is if it's a wave election it means there will be a big big a big change in the makeup of the house and are the senate do you want the old house and senate which is unrepresentative of what the country has just voted making laws that are contrary to what the new house and senate are going to do. i think most likely for all the fears and lord knows we will cover it on cable news, of a fiscal cliff my guess just gets put off. >> we do see the likelihood to make a deal as they are saying but there are two complications to that. there is a lot of incentive for the markets day by day are tracking and there will be a lot of incentive to reassure the

market but the two impediments to that. one, the white house tends to play real hardball. they put it off and they lose their leverage. they do not plan to just extend all that and ponzo that. there will be a fight over that and second president obama wins paul ryan is going to be back in the house and he probably will be running for president in 2016 and if paul ryan is back and elected for president he is not going to want to make a deal seen as raising revenue, raising taxes in the current server does we'll listen to them. that is another hurdle. >> that is important. >> there is pressure though on both sides to come together somehow. the so-called gang of six senators, two republicans and three democrats were meeting in the last few days and they have been joined a few other members

of the senate republicans and democrats. there is pressure to get something done. they know that the country is on the edge. the business community and corporate america, you know this better than anybody david, they are aware of that. >> you mentioned 2016. it's not too early for washington d.c. to think about the next election. 2020, why wait? let's assume obama is reelected or let's assume he is not reelected. either way whose the likely democratic nominee in 2016? >> i see they're going to the hillary clinton or -- everybody thinks she is at least going to give it a serious look in nobody knows for sure. terry mcauliffe is out there somewhere. terry, what do you think? [laughter] >> you know comment. or who else?

>> martin o'malley certainly is going to make a run. >> i assure you there will be no private equity person running for president. [laughter] if romney is not elected who will be the presumptive nominee for the republicans in 2016? is paul ryan presumptive then? >> you will have to fight senator marco rubio ford. marco rubio had a fantastic, great speaker but they seem to be the clear front-runners. we think of in a chris christie of new jersey will also go for it. governor bobby jindal of louisiana already fighting for a. >> let's assume for a moment obama is reelected and we have heard hillary clinton is going to step down as secretary secretary of state and tim geithner will step down as secretary of treasury.

if romney is elected who will be the secretary of state and the secretary of treasury? any guess as? >> i will tell you who won't be the secretary of state, susan rice. i think her chances were greatly diminished by her performance a couple of weeks back and i think that can really come back to bite her. >> i thought she was relating what she'd been told by the intelligence community. will that still be a problem for her? >> i think that increasing information is that with some of the intelligence community said. here's what i don't understand about that whole story. she came on our show and i take this personally because she came on my show and i specifically asked her. here is what the present olivia said and here is what al qaeda had said and she continued to tell the story in a spontaneous demonstration. we now know and i'm going to get on my soapbox for a minute has at 6:30 not yesterday but the

day before, tuesday, the state department had a conference call in which they told a few celeb reporters that there was no protest at all and in fact ambassador stevens had gone out into the street with a diplomat who he had dinner with that 8:30 at night and he said goodbye to them and a report from the embassy that there was nothing there. nothing was going on. there had never been at demonstration and it had been quiet all day and it 9:30 these armed people came in and attacked. incidentally not a word about it in washington's washington -- yesterday's "washington post" or "new york times." so how does she get on the air? not one, what not to but five days later to talk about a spontaneous protest that never existed. >> i still think there was a -- >> but judy how do you have a spontaneous protest the never existed and it turns out

yesterday the person in charge of security for the state department was on the phone with real-time that tuesday night the 11th with the people of installation in libya and they were told that there was no protest before the attack. >> just to bolster chris's point and why this is going to be a story for a long time, and the state department briefing they also said a crucial addition to this is that they had never thought that it was a spontaneous eruption that was talked about on our show which is different than the fog of intelligence which was the original -- >> do you think the next secretary of state if obama is elected would be -- >> not susan ryan. [laughter] >> senator john kerry, we are told the president does not blame him for the debate prep problem although no one wants to be associated with that.

>> and what about if romney is elected president? who will be secretary of state or secretary of defense are a? >> the thing is in the romney camp as mike has been describing there is an array of opinion and there is an array of opinion in the foreign-policy camp. from um ambassador to postrel and many in between and i think he is more likely to go with john bolton but we don't know. >> and the wise person just mentioned there's a there is a possibility for secretary of state senator rob portman to become an important advisor, has white house experience under both 41, 43 and would be a reassuring pic. >> let me pick up of what judy said because i think one of the really interesting stories if romney is elected after the guy has been campaigning for the president for eight years but one of the ruin just in questions will be who is the real romney particularly now that he is not running and he

will be thinking of re-election but he is not running at that moment for president and we don't know. there would be a battle in the state for the neocons and the foreign-policy and just let me me assist jarden, realist. whether it is selleck or john bolton, we will find out where romney tilts in terms of the people he selects for his cabinet and top-down. >> the republican policy is an establishment, the main old style have been very uncomfortable with most of the things romney has said in the area of foreign-policy. the neocons seem to have more of a dominant voice but the question is to chris's point where is the real romney and if elected would he go back towards this scowcroft view of foreign-policy or the neocons? >> we of 26 days to go before

the election. there is one last question i would like to ask. what would your project is the electoral vote for the winner specs how many electoral votes do you think he would get? 270 is needed to win. >> 300. >> 300 for obama. judy what would you say? >> i am not going to say who. i will say 295. >> i would pick 305 or 320. i think there will be a tipping point. i think there will be a clear winner. i think it will be an early night. they will improve in virginia and improve and colorado improve in ohio. >> here is how weak minded ion. when charlie takes this number i was going to take under and after hearing mike i will take the over as well. [laughter] >> you mentioned the early

chris, for example there are going to be exit polls this time. >> not in as many states. >> so when will we really know? suppose the networks now at 9:00 who the winner is. how long will it take before we actually go on the air and say who the winner is? >> we will not say who the winner is until we project him to have won the states with 270. it was pretty clear early on that obama had one but it was 9:00 or 10:00 at night before we finally announced or projected he was the winner. we have the project. we can't just say he won virginia so therefore, even though we knew at that point it was over. >> the polls have not closed in the west but you know you still go on the air and say the winners x? >> we would wait until they projected the states with a significant number of electoral electoral votes. >> here is.

>> here is the catch. exit polls are still polls. the races within a point pointer point or two, nexa poll doesn't tell you anything more than you already knew and with up to 40% of people voting early therefore not in the exit polls so they have to take a regular telephone poll to try to figure out who the orderly voters went for and then for states within a point or two or three you have to wait for the real vote so it's going to be later on. >> i have time for one or two questions. whoever raises their hand first can have one. any questions? who wants to answer the second question? >> we have one here and we have one more. >> i may have misunderstood that no one mentioned jeb bush for the next time around. he seems like the strongest of the lot. >> i think governor bush is an enormously competent guy and a prescient guy. to me his problem obviously is

his last name. i have the impression that maybe every three or four months he pulls out a geiger counter and holds the thing next to his last name. as long as it goes -- then he turns it off and puts it away. [laughter] and as soon as it does happen if you still young enough, he will run. but it is what it is. >> any other comments on that? other questions? [laughter] other questions? one more question back here and that will be the last question. >> you think all the money that has been raised and spent is going to be a significant determinant of who wins? >> i don't. i think it raises a whole other question about you now, do we want money to be that big of a factor in american politics, whether it determines the outcome or not? i think it's a much bigger factor in the senate and

congressional races, where money can completely kill the outcome because the folks running are just not as well-known. i think in the presidential there are so many other factors at play. it's not that money is important at all. i just don't think is the most important. >> there's one place that i think money won't be a factor. i don't think money will be effective between now and election day because both sides will have enough money to get their message out explosively about the presidential race. i do think there was a point where money was enormously important and that was between april and august. i don't think was covered enough, but romney to a large degree ran out of money because he spent all his money in the primaries and yes there was a lot of super pac money and he really did not have a lot of money and obama had been sitting on this war chest, not as because he thought it was going to be that much bigger than romney's. the reason that obama overwhelmed romney with those ads between april and august's

charlie said he was able to demonize this out of touch plutocrat from the monopoly gain and the fact that he had huge advantage in money and they could not start spending general election money although they were sitting on a whole treasury up until literally not only had been nominated but accept the nomination in late august so that was one place. >> looking at everything chris said that we go january to april, the republican nomination went a lot ankar than it would have as you had a business group meddling financing in the way of super pacs basically providing money to santorum when he needed it, gingrich when he needed it. actually to romney when he needed it and it kept the republican nomination contest going a lot longer than it would have. >> i want to thank her for panelist, chris wallace, mike allen, judy woodruff and charlie

cook. [applause] and this gift we have for each of you. for each of you you we have the first map of the district of columbia and one photo. i dotted. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> four years ago we went through the worst financial crisis since the great depression. millions of jobs were lost in the auto industry was on the brink of collapse. the financial system had frozen

up, and because of the resilience and the determination of the american people, we have begun to fight our way back. >> the president has a few very similar to the view we had when he ran four years ago, that a bigger government, spending more, taxing more, regulating more, trickle-down government would work. that is not the right answer for america. >> in a couple of moments we will go live to the vice presidential debate. on facebook we are asking what question would you like asked that the debate? log on to facebook.com/c-span2

let us know. some students at centre college in danville kentucky where the debate is being held have some questions. >> i know on censorship campus we had to get as many people register to vote as possible. we have a lot of different opinions about the election so it's really going to manner. >> hello, my question is what are your plans to increase job prospects for graduating seniors? >> hi, i want to know what you're doing to make college more affordable? >> i will -- the candidates how they will reconcile reducing the deficit, cut spending and still -- [inaudible] >> what are you doing to prevent trafficking and to stop it altogether? >> all day like event tomorrow on c-span2 to tell you about.

the center for strategic and international studies looks at political transitions in north africa. this starts at 8:30 a.m. eastern. >> we are live at centre college in danville kentucky for the 2012 vice presidential debate between vice presidential bike and congressman paul ryan. the moderator, martha raddatz is almost ready to begin after giving the audience instructions to remain quiet during the debate. we are waiting for her to introduce the candidates announced the opening question.

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[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> moderator: good evening and welcome to the first and only

vice presidential debate of 2012 sponsored by the commission on presidential debates. i'm martha raddatz of abc news, and i am honored to mod rate this debate between two men who have dedicated much of their lives to public service. tonight's debate is divided between domestic and foreign policy issues, and i'm going to move back and forth between foreign and domestic since that is what a vice president or president would have to do. we will have nine different segments. at the beginning of each segment, i will ask both candidates a question, and they will each have two minutes to answer. then i will encourage a discussion between the candidates with follow-up questions. by coin toss it has been determined that vice president biden will be first to answer the opening question. we have a wonderful audience here at centre college tonight. you will no doubt hear their enthusiasm at the end of the debate and right now as we welcome vice president joe biden

and congressman paul ryan. [cheers and applause] >> moderator: okay. you got your little wave to the families in, that's great. good evening, gentlemen, it is an honor to be here with both of you. i would like to begin with libya. on a rather somber note. one month ago tonight on the anniversary of 9/11, ambassador chris stevens and three other brave americans were killed in a terrorist attack in benghazi. the state department has now made clear there were no protesters there, it was a preplanned assault heavily-armed men. wasn't this a massive intelligence failure, vice president biden?

biden: what it was was a tragedy, martha. it -- chris stevens was one of our best. we lost three other brave americans, and i can make absolutely two commitments to you and all the american people tonight. one, we will find and bring to justice the men who did this. and secondly, we will get to the bottom of it, and whatever, wherever the facts lead us, wherever they lead us, we will make clear to the american public because whatever mistakes are made will not be made again. when you're looking at a president, martha, it seems to me that you should take a look at his most important responsibility. that's caring for the national security of the country. and the best way to do that is take a look at how he's handled the issues of the day. on iraq the president said he would end the war. governor romney said that was a tragic mistake, we should have left 30 -- that he ended it. governor romney said we should have left 30,000 troops there. with regard to afghanistan, he said he will end the war in 2014. governor romney said we should

not set a date, number one, and number two, with regard to 2014, it depends. when it came to osama bin laden, the president the first day in office, i was sitting with him in the oval office. he said my highest priority is to get bin laden. prior to the rex, prior to the -- prior to the election, governor romney was asked the question about how he would proceed. he said i wouldn't heaven and earth to get bin laden. it was about restoring america's heart and letting terrorists around the world know if you do harm to america, we will track you to the gates of hell if need be. and lastly, the president of the united states has led with a steady hand and clear vision. governor romney the opposite. the last thing we need now is another war. >> moderator: congressman ryan. ryan: we mourn the loss of these four americans who were

murdered. when you take a look at what has happened just in the last few weeks, they sent the u.n. ambassador to say that this was because of a protest in a youtube video. it took the president two weeks to acknowledge that this was a terrorist attack. he went to the u.n., and in his speech at the u.n. he said six times he talked about the youtube video. look, if we're hit by terrorists, we're going to call it for what it is, a terrorist attack. our ambassador in paris has a marine detachment guarding him. shouldn't we have a marine detachment guarding our ambassador in benghazi, a place where we knew that there was an al-qaeda cell with arms? this is becoming more troubling by the day. they first blamed the youtube video, now they're trying to blame the rom ty -- romney/ryan ticket for making this an issue. and with respect to iraq, we had the same position before the

withdrawal which was we agreed with the obama administration. let's make sure we secure our gains. the vice president was put in charge of those negotiations by president obama, and he failed to get the agreement. we don't have a set of forces agreement because today failed to get one. that's what we were talking about. when it comes to our veterans, we owe them a great debt of gratitude, including your son, beau. but we also want to make sure that we don't lose the things we have fought so hard to get. and with respect to afghanistan, the 2014 deadline, we agree with the transition, but what we also want to do is make sure we're not projecting weakness abroad, and that's what's happening here. this benghazi issue would be a tragedy in and of itself, but unfortunately, it's indicative of a broader problem, and that is what we are watching on our tv screens is the unraveling of the obama foreign policy which is making the world more chaotic and us less safe. >> moderator: i just want to

talk to you about right in the middle of the crisis, governor romney -- and you're talking about this again tonight -- talked about the weakness, talked about apologies from the obama administration. was that really appropriate right in the middle of the crisis? ryan: on that same day, the obama administration had the exact same position. let's recall that they disavowed their own statement that they had put up earlier in the day in cairo. so we had the same position. it's never too early to speak out for our values. we should have spoken out right away when the green revolution was up and starting when the mullahs in iran were attacking their people. we should not have called bashar assad a reformer when he was turning his russian-provided guns on his own people. we should always stand up for peace, for democracy, for individual rights. and we should not be imposing these devastating defense cuts because what that does when we equivocate on our values, it makes us more weak. it projects weakness, and when we look weak, our adversaries

are much more willing to test us, and our allies -- biden: with all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey. >> moderator: and why is that so? biden: not a single thing he said was accurate. >> moderator: be specific. biden: i will be very specific. number one, this lecture on embassy security, the congressman here cut security by $300 million below what we asked for, number one. so much for the embassy security piece. number two, governor romney -- before he knew the facts, before he even knew that our ambassador was killed, he was out making a political statement which was panned by the media around the world. and this talk about this weakness, i don't understand what my friend's talking about here. we -- this is a president who's gone out and done everything he has said he was going to do. this is a guy who's repaired our alliances so the rest of the world follows us again. this is a guy who brought the entire world, including russia and china, to bring about the

most devastating, most devastate ing, the most devastating efforts on iran to make sure that they, in fact, stop what they're -- look, i just, i mean, these guys bet against america all the time. >> moderator: can we talk -- let me go back to libya. biden: yeah, sure. >> moderator: what were you first told about the attacks? why, why were people talking about protests when people in the consulate first saw armed men attacking with guns, there were no protesters. biden: because that -- >> moderator: why didn't that -- [inaudible] biden: that's what we were told by the intelligence community. the intelligence community told us that. as they learned more facts about exactly what happened, they changed their assessment. that's why there's also an investigation headed up by tom pickering, a leading diplomat from the reagan years, who is doing an investigation as to whether or not there were any lapses, what the lapses were so that they will never happen again. >> moderator: and they wanted

more security there. biden: ewell, we weren't told they wanted more security. we did not know they wanted more security. at the time we said exactly what the intelligence community told us, that they knew. that was the assessment. and as the intelligence changed their view, we made it clear they changed chair view. that's why i said we will get to the bottom of this. you know, usually when there's a crisis we pull together. but as i said, even before we knew what happened to the ambassador, the governor was holding a press conference, was holding a press conference. that's not presidential leadership. >> moderator: mr. ryan, i want to ask you about the romney campaign talks a lot about no apologies. he has a book called "no apologies." should the u.s. have apologized for americans burning qurans in afghanistan? should the u.s. apologize for u.s. marines your mating on taliban corpses? ryan: oh, gosh, yes. your mating on taliban corpses?

what we should not be apologizing for are standing up for our values. what we should not be doing is saying to the egyptian people while mubarak is cracking down on them that he's a good guy and then the next week say he ought to go. what we should not be doing is rejecting claims for calls for more security in our barracks, in our marine -- we need marines in benghazi when the commander on the ground says we need more forces for security. there were requests for extra security. those requests were not honored. look, this was the anniversary of 9/11. it was libya, a country we knew we had al-qaeda cells there as we know al-qaeda and its affiliates are on the rise in northern africa, and we did not give our ambassador in benghazi a marine detachment? of course there's an investigation so we can make sure that this never happens again, but when it comes to speaking up for our values, we should not apologize for those. here's the problem. look at all the various issues out there, and it's unraveling before our eyes.

the vice president talks about sanctions on iran. they got -- >> moderator: let's move to iran. i'd actually like to move to iran because there's really no bigger national security -- ryan: absolutely. >> moderator: -- this country is facing. both president obama and governor romney have said they will prevent iran from getting a nuclear weapon, even if that means military action. last week former defense secretary bob gates said a strike on iran's facilities would, quote, not work and prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations. can the two of you be absolutely clear and specific to the american people how effective would a military strike be? congressman ryan? ryan: we cannot allow iran to gain a nuclear weapons capability. now, let's take a look at where we've come from. when barack obama was elected, they had enough fissile material, talk about lahr material to make one bomb, now they have enough for five. they're racing toward a nuclear weapon. they're four years closer to

nuclear weapons capability. we've had sanctions for four years, and the only reason we got it is because russia watered it down and prevented the sanctions from hitting the central bank. mitt romney proposed these things in 2007, in congress i've been fighting for these things since 2009. the administration was blocking us every step of the way. only because we had strong bipartisan support for these tough sanctions were we able to overrule their objections and put them in spite of the administration. imagine what would have happened if we'd had these sanctions in place earlier. do you think iran's not brazen? look at what they're doing. they're stepping up their terrorist attacks. they tried a terrorist attack in the united states last year when they tried to blow up the saudi ambassador at a restaurant in washington d.c. and talk about credibility, when this administration says that all options are on the table, they send out senior administration officials that send all these mixed signals. and so in order to solve this peacefully which is everybody's goal, you have to have the

ayatollahs change their minds. look at where they are. they're moving faster toward a nuclear weapon. it's because this administration has no credibility on this issue. it's because in this administration watered down sanctions, delayed sanctions, tried to stop us from putting the tough sanctions in place. now we have them in place because of congress. they say the military option's on the table, but it's not being viewed as credible, and the key is to do this peacefully to make sure we have credibility. under a romney administration, we will have credibility on this issue. >> moderator: vice president biden. biden: incredible. [laughter] look, imagine had we let the republican congress work out the sanctions. do you think there's any possibility the entire world would have joined us, russia and china, all of our allies? these are the most crippling sanctions in the history of sanctions, period. period. when governor romney's asked about it, he said we've got to keep these sanctions. when they said you're talking about doing more, you're going to go to war --

ryan: we want to prevent war. biden: the interesting thing is, how are they going to prevent war? they say there's nothing more than they say we should do than what we've already done, number one. and number two, with regard to the ability of the united states to take action militarily, it is, it is not, in my purview, to talk about classified information. but we feel quite confident we could deal a serious blow to the iranians. but number two, the iranians the -- israelis and the united states, our military intelligence communities are absolutely the same exact place in terms of how close, how close the iranians are to getting a nuclear weapon. they are a good way away. there is no difference between our view and theirs. when my friend talks about fissile material, they have to take this highly-enriched uranium, get it from 20% up, then they have to be able to have manager to put it in. -- something to put it in.

there is no weapon that the iranians have at this point. both the us rails and we know, we'll know if they start the process of building a weapon. so all this bluster i keep hearing and all this loose talk, what are they talking about? are you talking about to be more credible? what more can the president do, stand before the united nations, tell the whole world, directly communicate to the ayatollah, we will not let them acquire a nuclear weapon, period. unless he's talking about going to war. ryan: martha? >> moderator: congressman ryan. ryan: let's look at this from the view of the ayatollahs. what do today see? they see in the administration trying to water down sanctions in congress for over two years. they're moving faster toward a nuclear weapon. they're spinning the centrifuges faster. they see us saying when we come into the administration when they're sworn in, we need for space with our ally, israel. they see president obama in new york city the same day netanyahu is, and he instead of meeting

with him goes on a daily talk show. they see when we say that these options are on the table, the secretary of defense walked them back. they are not changing their mind. that's what we have to do is change their mind so they stop pursuing -- >> moderator: how do you do it so quickly? you both saw benjamin netanyahu hold up that picture of a bomb with a red line and talking about the red line being in spring. so can you solve this? if the romney/ryan ticket is elected, can you solve this in two months before spring and avoid nuclear -- ryan: we can debate the timeline. we can debate the timeline whether it's that short of time or longer, i agree that it's probably longer. number two, it's all about -- >> moderator: you don't agree with the bomb and what the israelis could do? [inaudible conversations] ryan: i don't want to go into classified stuff, but we both agree that to do this peacefully you've got to get them to change their minds. they're not changing their

minds, and look at what this administration does -- >> moderator: but what do you -- biden: the ayatollah sees his economy being crippled. the ayatollah sees that there are 50% fewer exports of oil. he sees the currency going into the tank. he sees the economy going into freefall, and he sees the world for the first time totally united in opposition to him getting a nuclear weapon. now, with regard to bebe, he's been my friend for 39 years. the president has met with bebe a dozen times. he's spoken to netanyahu as much as he's spoken to anybody. the idea that we're not -- i was in there just before he went to the u.n., i was this a conference call with the president, with him talking to bebe for well over an hour in stark relief, in detail about what was going on. this is a wunsch of stuff -- bunch of stuff. look, here's the deal -- >> moderator: what does that mean, a bunch of stuff? biden: well, it means -- ryan: he's irish. biden: the irish call it

malarkey. [laughter] last thing, the secretary of defense has made it absolutely -- he didn't walk anything back. we will not allow the iranians to get a nuclear weapon. what bebe held up there was when they get to the point where they can enrich uranium enough to put into a weapon. they don't have a weapon to put it into. let's all calm down a little bit here. iran is more isolated today than when we took office. it was on the ascendancy when we took office. it is totally isolated. >> moderator: congressman ryan? ryan: thank heavens we have these sanctions in place. it's in spite of their opposition. biden: oh, gosh. ryan: they've given 20 waivers, and all i have to point to is the results. they're four years closer to the -- >> moderator: can you tell the american -- [inaudible conversations] biden: they're closer to being a able to get enough fissile material to put in a weapon if they had a weapon. >> moderator: you're acting a

little bit like they don't want one. biden: i didn't say -- no, i'm not saying that. facts matter, martha. you're a foreign policy expert, facts matter. all this loose talk about them all they have to do is get to enrich uranium in a certain amount and they have a weapon. not true. not true. they are more -- and if we ever have to take action unlike when we took office, we will have the world behind us, and that matters. that matters. >> moderator: what about bob gates' statement? let me read ha again. could prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations. biden: he is right, it could prove catastrophic if we -- >> moderator: congressman ryan? ryan: and what it does, it undermines our credibility by with backing up the point when we make it that all options are on the table. that's the point. the ayatollahs see these kinds of statements, and they think i'm going to get a nuclear weapon. when, when we see the kind of equivocation that took place because this administration

wanted a precondition policy, so when the green revolution started up, they were silent for nine days. when they see us putting, when they see us putting daylight between ourselves and our allies in israel, that gives them encouragement. when they see russia watering down any further sanctions -- and the only reason we got a u.n. sanction was because russia watered it down and prevented these from being sanctions in the first place. when they see this activity, they are encouraged to continue. >> moderator: let me ask you what's worse, war in the middle east, another war in the middle east, or a nuclear-armed iran. ryan: a nuke or lahr-armed iran which triggers a nuclear arms race in the middle east. this is the world's largest sponsor of terrorism. they've dedicated themselves to wiping an entire country off the map, and if they get nuclear weapons, other people in the neighborhood will pursue their nuclear weapons as well. >> moderator: vice president? ryan: we can't live with that. biden: war should always be the

absolute last resort. that's why these crippling sanctions with bebe netanyahu says we should continue, which if i'm not mistaken governor romney says we should continue. i may be mistaken. he changes his mind so often, i could be wrong. but the fact of the matter is, he says they're working. and the pact is that they are -- the fact that is that they are working, and they are being crippled by them. and we've made it clear. big nations can't bluff, this president doesn't bluff. >> moderator: gentlemen, i want to bring the conversation to a different kind of national security issue, the state of our economy. the number one issue here at home is jobs. the percentage of unemployed just fell below 8% for the first time in 43 months. the obama administration had projected that it would fall below 6% now after the addition of close to a trillion dollars in stimulus money. so will both of you level with the american people, can you get unemployment to under 6%, and

how long will it take? biden: i don't know how long it will take. we can and we will get it under 6%. let's take a look at the facts. let's look at where we were when we came to office. the economy was in freefall, we had the great recession hit, nine million people lost their job. 1.6 trillion dollars in wealth lost in equity in your homes and retirement accounts for the middle class. we knew we had to act for the middle class. we immediately went out and rescued general motors. we went ahead and made sure that we cut taxes for the middle class. and in addition to that when that occurred, what did romney do? romney said, no, let detroit go bankrupt. we moved in and helped people refinance their homes. governor romney said, no, let foreclosures hit the bottom. but it shouldn't be surprising for a guy who says 47% of the american people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. my friend recently in a speech in washington said 30% of the american people are takers.

these people are my mom and dad, the people i grew up with, my neighbors. they pay more effective tax than governor romney pays in his federal income tax. they are elderly people who, in fact, are living off of social security. they are veterans and people fighting in afghanistan right now who are, quote, not paying any taxes. i've had it up to here with this notion that 47% -- it's about time they take some responsibility here. and instead of signing pledges to grover norquist not to ask the wealthiest among us to contribute to bring back the middle class, they should be signing a pledge saying to the middle class we're going to level the playing field. we're going to give you a fair shot again. we are going to not repeat the mistakes we made in the past by having a different set of rules for wall street and main street. making sure that we continue to hemorrhage these tax cuts for the super wealthy. pushing the continuation of a tax cut that will give an additional $500 billion in tax cuts to 120,000 families.

and they're holding hostage the middle class tax cut because they say we won't pass, we won't continue the middle class tax cut unless you give the tax cut for the super wealthy. it's about time they take some responsibility. >> moderator: mr. ryan? ryan: joe and i are from similar town. he's from scranton, pennsylvania, i'm from janesville, wisconsin. do you know what the unemployment rate in scranton is today? biden: i sure do. ryan: it's 10%. do you know what it was the day you came in? 8.5%. biden: look, that's not how it's going. it's going down. >> moderator: his two-minute answer, please. ryan ryan look -- [laughter] do they come in and inherit a tough situation? absolutely. we're going in the wrong direction. look at where we are. the economy is barely limping along. it's growing at 1.3%. that's slower than it grew last year, and last year was slower than the year before. job growth in september was slower than it was in august, and august was slower than it was this july.

we're heading in the wrong direction. 23 million americans are struggling for work today. 15% of americans are living in poverty today. this is not what a real recovery looks like. we need real reforms for a real recovery, and that's exactly what mitt romney and i proposing. it's a five-point plan. get america energy independent in north america by the end of the decade. help people who are hurting to get the jobs they want. get this debt and deficit under control to prevent a debt crisis. make trade work in america so we can sell them overseas and champion small businesses. don't raise taxes on small businesses because they're our job creators. he talks about detroit. mitt romney's a car guy. they keep misquoting him, but let me tell you about the mitt romney i know. this is a guy who i was talking to a family in northboro, massachusetts, the other day. cheryl and mark nixon. their kids were hit in a car crash, four of them. two of them, rob and reid, were

paralyzed. the romneys didn't know them. they went to the same church, they never met before. mitt asked if he could come over on christmas. he brought his boys, his wife and gifts. later on he said i know you're struggling, mark, don't worry about their college, i'll pay for it. when mark told me this story -- because, you know what? mitt romney doesn't tell this stories. the nixons told this story. when he told me this story, he said it wasn't the help, the cash help, it's that he gave his time, and he has consistently. this is a man who gave 30% of his income to charity, more than the two of us combined. mitt romney's a good man. he cares about 100% of americans in this country. and with respect to that quote, i think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way. [laughter] biden: well, i always say what i mean. [laughter] ryan: we want everybody to succeed. we want to get people out of poverty, in the middle class.

we believe in opportunity and upward mobility. that's what we're going to purpose for in a romney -- >> moderator: vice president? i have a feeling you have a few things to say here. [laughter] biden: the idea if you heard that little soliloquy on 47% you think he just made a mistake, then i think you're, i think -- i've got a bridge to sell ya. um, look, i don't doubt his personal generosity, and i understand what it's like. when i was a little younger than the congressman, my wife was in an accident, killed my daughter and my wife, and my two sons survived. i have sat in the homes of many people that have gone through what i went through because the one thing you can give people solace is to know they know you've been through it, they can make it. so i don't doubt his personal commitment to individuals. but you know what? i know he had no commitment to the automobile industry. he just, he said let it go

bankrupt. period. let it drop out. all this talk, we saved a million jobs. 200,000 people are working today. and i've never met two guys who are more down on america across the board. we're told everything's going bad. 5.2 million new jobs, private sector jobs. we need more, but 5.2 million, if they'd get out of the way, if they'd get out of the way and let us pass a tax cut for the middle class, make it permanent, if they'd get out of the way and pass the jobs bill, if they get out of the way and let us allow 14 million people who are struggling to stay in their homes because their mortgages are upside down, but they never missed a mortgage payment. just get out of the way. stop talking about how you care about people. show me something. show me a policy. show me a policy where you take responsibility. and by the way, they talk about this great recession as if it fell out of the sky like, oh, my goodness, where did it come from? it came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card at the same time put a prescription

drug benefit on a credit card, a trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy. i was there. i voted against them. i said, no, we can't afford that. and now all of a sudden these guys are so seized with the concern about the debt that they created -- >> moderator: congressman ryan? ryan: let's not forget that they came in with one-party control. when barack obama was elected, his party controlled everything, they had the ability to do everything of their choosing, and look at where we are right now. they passed the stimulus. the idea that we could borrow $831 billion, spend it on all these special interest groups and that it would work out just fine, that unemployment would never get to 8%, it went up above 3% -- 8% for 43 months. they said if we just passed the stimulus, the economy would grow at 4%. it's growing at 1.3. >> moderator: when could you get it below -- relationship ryan creating 12 million jobs

over the next four years. look at the $90 billion in stimulus. the vice president was in charge of overseeing this. $90 billion in green pork to campaign contributors and special interest groups. there are just at the department of energy over 100 criminal investigations that have been -- biden: martha -- >> moderator: go ahead, go ahead. biden: martha, look -- ryan: crony capitalism. biden: an investigative committee spent months and months and months -- ryan: this is the inspector general. biden: they found no evidence of cronyism. and i love my friend here. i'm not allowed to show letters, but go to our web site. he sent me two letters saying, by the way, can you send me some stimulus money for the people here in the state of wisconsin? >> moderator: you did ask for stimulus money. ryan: on two occasions we advocated for constituents who were applying for grants. [laughter] that's what we do. we do that for all constituents -- biden: i love that. i love that. this is such a bad program, and

he writes me a letter saying the reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs. his words. and now he's sitting here looking at me and, by the way, that program -- again investigated -- what the congress said was it was a model. less than four-tenths of 1% waste or fraud in the program. and all this talk about cronyism. they investigated and investigated, did not find one single piece of evidence. i wish he would just with a little more candid. ryan: was it a good idea to spend taxpayer dollars on extra cars in finland or windmills in china? was it a good idea to borrow all this money from countries on china and spend it on all these various interest groups? biden: it was a good idea, moody's and others said it was exactly what we needed. it set the conditions to be able to grow again. we have, in fact, 4% of those green jobs didn't go under. went under, didn't work.

it's a better battle average than investment bankers have, they have about a 40% -- ryan: where are the five million green jobs -- diswrm i want to move on to medicare and entitlements. i think we've gone over this quite enough. biden: by the way, any letter you send me i'll entertain. ryan: i appreciate that, joe. >> moderator: both medicare and social security are going broke and taking a large share in the process. will benefits for americans under these programs have to change for the programs to survive, mr. ryan? ryan: absolutely. medicare and social security are going bankrupt. these are indisputable facts. look, when i look at these programs, we've all had tragedies in our lives, i think about what they've done for my own family. my mom and i had my grandmother move in with us who was facing alzheimer's. medicare was there for her, just like it's there for my mom who's a florida senior. helped me pay for college, it helped her go back to college in

her 50s where she started a small business because of the new skills she got, she paid all of her taxes on the promise that these programs would be there for her. we will honor this promise, and the best way to do it is reform it for my generation. you see, if you reform these programs for my generation, people 54 and below, you can guarantee they don't change for people in or near retirement which is precisely what mitt romney and i are proposing. look what obamacare does. it takes $716 billion from medicare to spend on obamacare, even their own chief actuary at medicare backs this up. he says you can't spend the same dollar twice. you can't claim this money goes to medicare and obamacare. and then they put this new obamacare board in charge of cutting medicare each and every year in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors. this board, by the way, it's 15 people, the president's supposed to appoint them next year, and not one of them even has to have medical training. in social security, if we don't shore up social security, when

we run out of the ious, when the program goes bankrupt, a 25% across the board benefit cut kicks in on current seniors in the middle of their retirement. we're going to stop that from happening. they haven't put a credible solution on the table. he'll tell you about vouchers, he'll say all these things to try and scare people. here's what we're saying: give younger people when they become medicare-eligible guaranteed coverage options that you can't be denied, including traditional medicare. choose your plan, and then medicare subsidizes your premiums. not as much for the wealthy, more income for the less wealthy. we would rather have 50 million future seniors determine how their medicare's delivered to them instead of 15 bureaucrats deciding when they get it. >> moderator: vice president? biden: it seems every vice presidential debate i hear this stuff about panels.

let's talk about medicare. what we did is we saved $716 billion and put it back and applied it to medicare. we cut the cost of medicare, we stopped overpaying insurance companies when doctors and hospitals, the ama supported what we did, aarp endorsed what we did. and it extends the life of medicare to 2024. they want to wipe this all out. it also gave more benefits. any senior out there ask yourself, do you have more benefits today? you do. if you're near the doughnut hole, you have $600 more to help your prescription drug costs. you get wellness visits without co-pays. they wipe all of this out, and medicare becomes insolvent in 2016, number one. number two, guaranteed benefit. it's a voucher. when they first proposed, when the congressman had his first voucher program, the cbo said it would cost $6,400 a year, martha, more for every senior 55 and below when they got there.

he knew that, yet he got in all the guys in congress and women in the republican party to vote for it. governor romney knowing that said i would sign it. who do you believe? the ama? me? a guy who's fought his whole life for this? or somebody who would actually put in motion a plan that knowingly cut -- added $6,400 a year more to the cost of medicare. now they've got a new plan. trust me, it's not going to cost you anymore. folks, follow your instincts on this one. and with regard to social security, we will not, we will not privatize it. if we had listened to romney, governor romney and the congressman during the bush years, imagine where all those seniors would be now if their money had been in the market. their ideas are old, and their ideas are bad, and they eliminate the guarantee of medicare. ryan: here's the problem, they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar turning medicare

into a piggybank for obamacare. their own actuary from the administration came to congress and said one out of six hospitals and nursing homes are going to go out of business as a result of this. biden: that's not what they said. ryan: 7.4 million seniors are projected to lose the current medicare advantage coverage they have, that's a $3200 -- biden: that didn't happen. more people signed up for medicare advantage after the change. ryan: what they're -- biden: nobody has -- ryan: mr. vice president, i kno you're under a lot of duress to make up -- [laughter] but i think people would be better served if we don't keep interrupting each other. biden: well, don't take all the four minutes then. ryan: we're saying don't change benefits for people 55 and above. they already. >> moderator: let me ask you this, what is your specific plan for seniors who really can't afford to make up the difference in the value of what you call a premium support plan and others call a voucher? ryan: 100% coverage for them.

>> moderator: and what does it cost? how do you make that up? ryan: by taking down the subsidies for wealthy people. look, this is a plan -- by the way, that $6400 number was misleading then, it's totally inaccurate now. this is a plan that's bipartisan. it's a plan i put together with a prominent democrat senator -- biden: there's not one democrat who endorses it. not one democrat -- ryan: our partner is a democrat from oregon. why'dwide and he says he no longer -- ryan: we put it together with the former clinton director -- biden: who disavowed it. ryan: he's the point -- here's the point, martha, if we don't fix this problem pretty soon, then current seniors get cut. here's the problem, 10,000 people are retiring every single day in america today, and they will for 20 years. that's not a -- biden: martha, if we just did one thing, be they just allow medicare to bargain for the cost of drugs like medicaid can, that would save $156 billion right

off the bat. ryan: and it would deny seniors choices. biden: all, all -- seniors are not denied. ryan: absolutely. biden: they are not denied. look, folks, all you seniors out there, have you been denied choices? is you lost medicare advantage? ryan: because it's working right now. >> moderator: vice president, let me ask you, if it could help solve the problem, why not very slowly raise the medicare eligibility age by two years as congressman ryan suggests? biden: look, i was there when we did that with social security in 1983. i was one of eight people sitting in the room that included tip o'neill negotiating with president reagan. we all got together, and everybody said as long as everybody's in the deal, everybody's in the deal and everybody is making some sacrifice, we can find a way. we made the system solvent to 2033. we will not, though, be part of any voucher man eliminating -- the voucher says, mom, when

you're 65, go out there, shop for the best insurance you can get. you're out of medicare. you can buy back in you want with this voucher, which will not keep pace, will not keep pace with health care costs. because if it did keep pace with health care costs, there would be no savings. that's why they go the voucher. we will be no part of a voucher program or the privatization of social security. ryan: the voucher is you go to your mailbox, buy something. nobody's proposing that. barack obama four years ago running for president said if you don't have any fresh ideas, use stale tactics to scare voters. if you don't have a good record to run on, paint your opponent as someone people should run from. >> moderator: you were one of the few lawmakers to stand with president bush when he was seeking to partially privatize social security. ryan: for younger people. what we said then and what i've always agreed is let younger americans have a voluntary choice of making their money

work faster for them within the social security system. biden: you saw how well that worked. ryan: what we're saying is no changes for anybody 55 and above, and then the kinds of changes we're talking about for younger people like myself is don't increase the benefits for wealthy people as fast as everybody else, slowly raise the retirement age over time. it wouldn't get to the age of 70 until the year 2103 according to the actuaries. >> moderator: quickly, vice president. biden: quickly. the bottom line here is that all the studies show that if we went with social security proposal made by mitt romney, if you're in your 40s now, you'll pay $2600 a -- you get $2600 less in social security. if you're in your 20s now, you get $4700 less. the idea of changing, and change being in this case to cut the benefits for people without taking other action you can do to make it work, is absolutely the wrong way. these -- look, these guys haven't been big on medicare from the beginning. their party's not been big on

medicare from the beginning, and they've always been about social security as little as you can do. look, folks, use your common sense. who do you trust on this? a man who introduced a bill that would raise it $6400 a year, knowing it and passing it and romney saying he'd sign it or me and the president? ryan: that statistic was completely misleading, but more importantly, this is what politicians do when they don't have a record to run on, try to scare people from voting for you. if you don't get ahead of this problem, it's going to -- biden: medicare beneficiaries -- >> moderator: we're going to move on. very simple question -- ryan: medicare and social security did so much for my own family, we are not going to jeopardize this program, but we have to save it. biden: you are jeopardizing this program. you're changing the program from a guaranteed benefit to premium support, whatever you call it. the bottom line is people are going to have to pay more money out of their pocket, and the families i know and the families i come from, they don't have the money to pay --

ryan: more for lower income people. >> moderator: gentlemen, i would like to move on, and something tells me i won't get a simple answer. but let me ask you this -- biden: i gave you a simple answer. he's raising the cost of medicare. >> moderator: okay, on to taxes. if your ticket is elected, who will pay more in taxes and who will pay less? vice president biden for two minutes. biden: the middle class will pay less and people making a million dollars or more will begin to pay slightly more. the continuation of the bush tax cuts, we're arguing that the bush tax cuts for the wealthy should be allowed to expire. of the bush tax cuts for the wealthy, $800 billion of that goes to people making a minimum of a million dollars. we see no justification in these economic times for those -- and they're patriotic americans, they're not asking for this continued tax cut, they're not suggesting it. but my friends are insisting on it. 120,000 families by continuing that tax cut will get an

additional $500 billion in tax relief in the next ten years, and their income is an average of $8 million. we want to extend permanently the middle class tax cut for -- permanently from the bush middle class tax cut. these guys won't allow us to, you know what they're saying? we say let's have a vote, let's have a vote on the middle class tax cut and the upper tax cut. let's go ahead and vote on it. they're saying, no. they're holding hostage the middle class tax cut to the super wealthy. and on top of that, they've got another tax cut coming that's $5 trillion that all the studies point out will, in fact, give another $250 million -- yeah, $250,000 a year to those 120,000 families and raise taxes for people who are middle income with a child by $2,000 a year. this is unconscionable. there is no need for this. the middle class got knocked on their heels, the great recession

crushed them. they need some help now. the last people who need help are 120,000 families for another, another $500 billion tax cut over the next ten years. >> moderator: congressman? ryan: our entire premise of the tax reform plans is to grow the economy and create jobs. it's a plan that's estimated to create seven million jobs. now, we think that government taking 28% of a family and business' income is enough. president obama think that is the government ought to be able to take as much as 43.8% of a small business' income. look, if you taxed every person and successful small business making over $250,000 at 900% -- 100%, it'd only run the government for 98 days. if everybody who paid income taxes last year including successful small businesses doubled their income taxes this year, we'd still have a $300 billion deficit.

you see, there aren't enough rich people and small businesses to tax to pay for all their spending. and so the next time you hear them say don't worry about it, we'll get a few wealthy people to pay their fair share, watch out, middle class. the tax bill's coming to you. that's why we're saying we need fundamental tax reform. let's take look at it this way. eight out of ten businesses, they file their taxes as businesses, not as corporations. and where i come from overseas, which is lake superior, the canadians, they drop their tax rates to 15%. the average tax rate on businesses in the industrialized world is 25%, and the president wants the top effective tax rate on successful small businesses to go above 40%. two of thirds of our jobs come from small businesses. this one tax would actually tax about 53% of small business income. it's expected to cost us 710,000 jobs. and you know what? it doesn't each pay for 10% -- even pay for 10% of their

proposed deficit spending increases. what we are saying is lower tax rates across the board and close loopholes primarily to the higher income peopleful we have three bottom lines; don't raise the deficit, don't raise taxes on the middle class, and don't lower the share of income borne by the high income earners. he'll keep saying this $5 trillion plan, i suppose. it's been discredited by six other studies, and even their own deputy campaign manager acknowledged it wasn't correct. >> moderator: well, let's talk about this 20%. [laughter] you have refused and, again, to offer specifics on how you pay for that 20% across-the-board tax cut. do you actually have the specifics, or are you still working on it, and that's why you won't tell voters? ryan: different than this administration, we actually want to have big bipartisan agreement. you see, i understand -- >> moderator: do you have the specifics? do you have -- [inaudible conversations] ryan: look at what mitt romney -- look at what ronald reagan and tip o'neill did. they worked together out of a

framework to lower tax rates and broaden the base, and they worked together to fix that. what we're saying is here's our framework, lower tax rates 20%. we raise about $1.2 trillion through income taxes. we forgo about 1.1 trillion in loopholes and deductions. so what we're saying is deny those loopholes and deductions to higher income taxpayers so that more of their income is taxed which has a broader -- biden: can i translate? ryan: so we can lower tax rates across the board. here's why i'm saying this -- biden: i hope i'm going to get time to respond. >> moderator: you'll get time. ryan: we want to work with the congress on how beth -- best to achieve this. >> moderator: no specifics again. ryan: lower tax rates 20%, start with the wealthy -- >> moderator: you guarantee this math will add up? ryan: six studies have verified that this -- >> moderator: vice president biden. biden: look, let me have a chance to translate. ryan: i'll come back in a second, right? biden: ronald reagan gave

specifics to what he was going to cut, number one. number two, 97% of the small businesses in america pay less -- make less than $250,000. let me tell you who some of those other small businesses are, hedge funds that make six, eight hundred million dollars a year. what they count as small business because they're pass-through. let's look at how sincere they are. ronald -- i mean, excuse me, governor romney on "60 minutes," i guess it was about ten days ago was asked, golf, you pay 14% on $20 million. some are making $50,000 pay more than that. do you think that's fair? he said, oh, yes, that's fair. and they're going to talk -- you think these guys are going to go out there and cut those loopholes? the biggest loophole they take advantage of is the carried interest loophole and capital gains loophole. they exempt that. now, there's not enough -- the reason why the aei study, the american enterprise institute study, the tax policy center study, the reason they all say it's going to go up on the

middle class, the only way you can find $5 trillion in loopholes is cut the mortgage deduction for middle class people, cut the health care deduction of middle class people, take away their ability to get a tax break to send their kids to college. that's why they arrive -- >> moderator: is he wrong about that? ryan: he is wrong about that. biden: how's that? ryan: you can cut tax rates by 20% and still preserve these important -- biden: not mathematically possible. ryan: it is mathematically possible. it's been done before. it's precisely -- biden: it has never been done before. [laughter] ryan: it's been done a couple times. jack kennedy -- biden: oh, now you're jack kennedy. [laughter] ryan: republicans and democrats have worked together on this. biden: that's right. we told you what we're going to do. [inaudible conversations] rune ryan we're going to fill in the details. that's how you get things done. you work with congress -- look, let me say it this way.

biden: that's coming from a republican congress working bipartisanly? 7% rating? ryan: mitt romney was governor of massachusetts where 87% of the legislators were democrats. he didn't demonize them, demagogue them, he met with those party leaders every week, he reached across the aisle, he didn't compromise principles, he found common ground, and he -- [inaudible conversations] >> moderator: vice president -- biden: why isn't he even contesting massachusetts? >> moderator: what would you suggest beyond raising taxes on the wealthy that would substantially reduce -- biden: just let taxes expire like they're supposed to on those millionaires. we don't -- we can't afford $800 billion going to people making a minimum of a million dollars. they do not need it, martha. those 120,000 families make $8 million a year. middle class people need the help. why does my friend cut out the tuition tax credit for them?

why does he go -- >> moderator: can you declare anything off limits? ryan: yeah. we're saying close loopholes -- >> moderator: home mortgage deduction. ryan: for a higher income people. biden: can you guarantee that no one making less than $100,000 has a mortgage deduction impacted? ryan: this impacts a million small businesses. he keeps trying to make you think it's just some movie star or hedge fund guy -- biden: 97% of the small businesses make less than $250,000 a year -- ryan: joe, you know it taxes a million people, a million small businesses -- biden: does it tax 97% of the -- ryan: it taxes small businesses -- biden: i wish i'd -- >> moderator: and you're going to increase, and you're going to increase the defense budget. ryan: we're just not going to cut the defense budget. biden: $2 billion. >> moderator: so no massive defense increases? ryan: okay. you want to get into defense now? >> moderator: yes, i do.

because that's another math question. how do you do that? ryan: okay. so they proposed a $478 billion cut to defense to begin with, now another $500 billion cut to defense that's lurking on the horizon. they insisted on that cut being involved in the debt negotiations -- >> moderator: let's put the automatic defense cuts aside, okay? let's put aside, no one wants that, but i want to know how you do the math and have this increase in -- biden: work the -- $2 trillion. >> moderator: and what national security issues justify an increase? ryan: we're going to cut 80,000 soldiers, 20,000 marines, 120 cargo planes, we're going to push the -- >> moderator: drawing down with one war and one war -- ryan: if these cuts go through, our navy will be the smallest it has been since before world war i. this invites weakness. look, do we believe in peace through strength? you bet we do, and that means

you don't impose these devastating cuts on our military. so we're saying don't cut the military by a trillion dollars. not increase it by a trillion, don't cut it by a trillion. >> moderator: quickly, vice president biden, i want to move on. biden: i don't want to use the fancy word sequester, this automatic cut. that was part of a debt deal that they asked for. and let me tell you what my friend said at a press conference announcing his support of the deal. he said, and i'm paraphrasing, we've been looking for this moment for a long time. ryan ryan can i tell you what that meant? we've been looking for bipartisanship for a long time. biden: so that was what he voted for fur automatic cuts to defense if they didn't act. and, look, the military says we need a smaller, leaner army. we need more special forces. we need -- we don't need more m-1 tanks -- >> moderator: some of the military. biden: not some of the military, that was the decision of the joint chiefs of staff, recommended to us and agreed to by the president.

>> moderator: who -- [inaudible] biden: they made the recommendation first. >> moderator: okay. let's move on to afghanistan. ryan: can i get into that? >> moderator: i'd like to move to afghanistan, and that's one of the biggest expenditures this country has made in dollars and, more importantly, in lives. we just passed the sad milestone of losing 2,000 u.s. troops in this war, more than 50 killed this year by the very afghan forces we are trying to help. now, we've reached the recruiting goal for afghan forces, we've degraded al-qaeda, so tell me, why not leave now? what more can we really accomplish? is it worth more american lives? ryan: we don't want to lose the gains we've gotten. we want to make sure the taliban does not come back in and give al-qaeda a safe haven. we agree with the administration on their 2014 transition. look, when i think about afghanistan, i think about the incredible job that our troops have done. you've been there more than the

two of us combined. first time i was there in 2002, it was amazing to me what they were facing. i went to kandahar before the surge, i sat down with a young private in the 82nd from an indian reservation who would tell me what he did every day, and i was in awe. and to see what they had in front of them and then to go back in december to see what they had accomplished, it's nothing short of amazing what we don't want to do is lose the gains we've gotten. now, we've agreed from time to time on a few issues. we would have more likely taken into account the recommendations from our commanders, general petraeus, admiral mullen on troop levels throughout this year's fighting season. we've been skeptical about negotiations with the taliban, especially while they're shooting at us. but we want to see the 2014 transition be successful, and that means we want to make sure our commanders have what they need to make sure that it is successful so that this does not once again become a launching

pad for terrorists. >> moderator: vice president biden. biden: martha, let's keep our eye on the ball. the reason i've been to afghanistan and iraq 20 times, i've been up in the konar valley, i've been throughout that country mostly in a helicopter and sometimes in a vehicle. the fact is we went there for one reason, to get those people who killed americans. al-qaeda. we decimated al-qaeda central, we have eliminated osama bin laden. that was our purpose. and, in fact, in the meantime what we said we would do, we would help train the afghan military. it's their responsibility to take over their own security. that's why with 49 of our allies in afghanistan we've agreed on a gradual drawdown so we're out of there by the year 20 -- in the year 2014. my friend and the governor say it's based on conditions which

means it depends. it does not depend for us. it is the responsibility of the afghans to take care of their own security. we have trained over 315,000 mostly without incident. there have been more than two dozen cases of green on blue where americans have been killed. if we do -- if the measures the military has taken do not take hold, we will not go on joint patrols, we will not train in the field, we'll only train in the, in the army pace -- bases that exist there. but we are leaving. we are leaving in 2014. period. and in the process we're going to be saving over the next ten years another $800 billion. we've been in this war for over a decade. the primary objective is almost completed, now all we're doing is putting the kabul government in a position to be able to maintain their own security.

it's their responsibility, not america's. >> moderator: what conditions could justify staying, congressman ryan? ryan: we don't want to stay. we want -- look, one of my best friends in janesville, a reservist, is at a forward operating base in eastern afghanistan right now, our wives are best friends, our daughters are best friends. i want him and all of our troops to come home as soon and safely as possible. we want to make sure the 2014's successful. that's why we want to make sure that we give our commanders what they say they need to make it successful. we don't want to extend beyond 2014. that's the point we're making. you know, if it was just this, i'd feel like we would be able to call this a success. but it's not. what we are witnessing as we turn on our television screens these days is the absolute unraveling of the obama foreign policy. problems are gwing at home, but -- problems are growing abroad, but jobs aren't growing

here at home. >> moderator: let me go back to this. he says we're absolutely leaving in 2014. you're saying that's not an absolute, but you won't talk about what conditions would justify -- ryan: you know why we say that? because we don't want to broadcast to our enemies put a date on our calendar, wait us out -- >> moderator: but you do agree with the timeline? ryan: we do agree with the timeline and the transition, but what any administration will do in 2013 is assess the situation to see how best to complete this timeline. biden: we will leave in 2014. ryan: what we do not want to do is give our allies reason to trust us less and our enemies more -- we don't want to embolden our enemies to hold and wait out for us and -- biden: martha, that's a bizarre statement. 49 of our allies, hear me, 49 of our allies signed on to this position. ryan: and we're reading that

they want -- biden: 9. 49 of our allies said out in 2014. it's the responsibility of the afghans. >> moderator: do you think this -- but we have, we have ma evens -- marines, we have afghan forces murdering our forces over there. the taliban is, do you think, taking advantage of this timeline? biden: look, the taliban -- what we've found out, and you saw it in iraq, martha, unless you set a timeline baghdad in the case of iraq and kabul in the case of afghanistan will not step up. they're happy to let us continue to do the job. international security force to do the job. the only way they step up and say, fellas, we're leaving, we've trained you. step up. step up. >> moderator: but let me go -- biden: that's the only way it works. >> moderator: let me go back to the surge troop that is we put many there, and you brought

this up, congressman ryan. i have talked to a lot of troops, i've talked to senior officers who were concerned that the surge troops were pulled out during the fighting season, and some of them saw that as a political, as a political move. so can you tell me, vice president biden, what was the military reason for bringing those surge troops home -- biden: the military reason for -- by the way, when the president announced the surge, you'll remember, martha, he said the surge will be out by the end of the summer. the military said the surge will be out. nothing political about this. before the surge occurred, so you be a little straight with me here too. before the surge occurred, we said they'll be out by the end of the summer. that's what the military said. the reason for that is -- >> moderator: military follows orders. i mean, they're -- trust me, there are people who were concerned about pulling out. biden: sure. there are people that are concerned, but not the joint chiefs. that was their recommendation in the oval office to the president

of the united states of america. i sat there. i'm sure you'll find someone who disagrees with the pentagon. i'm positive you'll find that within the military. but that's not the case here. and secondly, the reason why the military said that is you cannot wait and have a cliff. it takes, you know, months and months and months to draw down forces. you cannot -- ryan: let me illustrate the issue here because i think this can get a little confusing. we've all met with general allen in afghanistan to talk about fighting seasons. here's the way it works. the mountain passes fill in with snow, the taliban and the terrorists and the haqqani come over from pakistan to fight our men and women. when it's frozen with snow, they can't do it. that's what we call fighting seasonses. in the warm months, fighting gets really high. in the winter it goes down. so when admiral mullen and general petraeus came to congress and said if you pull

these people out before the fighting season has ended, it puts people more at risk. that's the problem. yes, we drew 22,000 troops down last month, but the remaining troops that are there who still have the same mission to prosecute, counterinsurgency, are doing it with fewer people. that makes them less safe. we're sending fewer people out in all these hot spots to do the same job that they were supposed to do a month ago -- biden: because we timed it over, we turned it over to the afghan troops we trained. no one got pulled out that didn't get filled in by trained afghan personnel. and he's, he's conflating two issues. the fighting season that petraeus was talking about and former, and admiral mullen was the fighting season this spring. that's what he was talking about. we did not, we did not pull them out. ryan: the calendar works the same every year. biden: it does work the same

every year. ryan: spring, summer, fall. it's warm or it's not. [laughter] they're still fighting us, they're still coming over the passes, they're still coming in to kunar, to all of these areas. but we are sending fewer people to the front to fight them --widewide that's right, because that's the afghan responsibility. we've trained them. ryan ryan not in the east. >> moderator: let's move to another -- biden: not in the east? the east is the most dangerous place -- ryan: that's right. biden: that's why we should send americans in to do the job -- you'd rather americans go in -- ryan: no. we're already sending americans to do the job, but fewer of them. biden: that's right. we're sending in more afghans to do the job. afghans to do the job. >> moderator: let's move to another war, the civil war in syria where there are estimates that more than 25,000, 30,000 people have now been killed. in march of last year, president obama explained the military action taken in libya by saying it was in the national interest

to go in and prevent further massacres from occurring there. so why doesn't the same logic apply in syria? biden: different country. it's a different country. it is five times as large geographically. it has one-fifth the population, that is libya, one-fifth the population, five times as large geographically. it's a part of the world where they're not going to see whatever would come from that war seep into a regional war. you're in a country that is heavily populated in the midst of the most dangerous area in the world. and, in fact, if, in fact, it blows up and the wrong people gain control, it's going to have impact on the entire region causing potentially regional wars. we are working hand and glove with the turks, with the jordanians w the saudis and with all the people in the region. attempting to identify the people who deserve the help so that when assad goes -- and he

will go -- there will be a legitimate government that follows on, not an al-qaeda-sponsored government that follows on. and all this loose talk of my friend, governor romney and the congressman, about how we're going to do, we could do so much more in there, what more would they do other than put american boots on the ground? the last thing america needs is to get in another ground war in the middle east. requiring tens of thousands, if not well over 100,000 american forces. that -- they are the facts. they are the facts. now, every time the governor has asked about this -- is asked about this, he doesn't say, he goes up with a whole lot of verbage, but when he gets pressed, he says, no, he would not do anything different than we are doing now. are they proposing putting american troops on the ground? putting american aircraft in the air space? is that what their proposing? if they do, they should speak up

and is say so. but that's not what they're saying. we are doing it exactly like we need to do to identify those forces who, in fact, will provide for a stable government and not cause a regional sunni/shia war when bashar assad falls. >> moderator: congressman ryan. ryan: nobody is proposing to send troops to syria, american troops. now, let me say it this way. how would we do things differently? we wouldn't refer to bashar assad as a reformer when he's killing his own civilians with s russian-provided weapons. we wouldn't be outsourcing our foreign policy to the united nations giving vladimir putin veto power over our efforts to try and deal with this issue. he's vetoed three of them. hillary clinton went to russia to try and convince him not to do so, they thwarted her efforts. she said they were on the wrong side of history. she was right about that. this is just one more example of how the russia reset's not

working. and so where are we? after international pressure mounted, then president obama said bashar assad should go. it's been over a year. the man has slaughtered tens of thousands of his own people, and more foreign fighters are spilling into this country. so the longer this has gone on, the more people, groups like al-qaeda is are going in. we could have more easily identified the free syrian army, the freedom fighters working with our allies, the turks, the qataris, the saudis had we had a better plan in place to begin with working through our allies. but, no, we waited for kofi annan to try and come up with an agreement through the u.n. that bought bashar assad time. we gave russia veto power over our efforts through the u.n., and meanwhile, about 30,000 syrians are dead. biden: what would my friend do differently. if you notice, he never answers the question. ryan ryan no, i -- we would not be going through the u.n.

biden: you don't go through the u.n. we are in the process now and have been for months in making sure that help, humanitarian aid as well as other aid and training is getting to those forces that we believe, the turks believe, the jordanians believe, the saudis believe are the free forces inside of syria. that is underway. our allies were all on the same page. nato as well as our arab allies in terms of trying to get a settlement. that was their idea. we're the ones that said, enough. with regard to the reset not working, the fact of the matter is that russia has a different interest in syria than we do, and that's not in our interest. >> moderator: what happens if assad does not fall? congressman ryan? what happens to the region? what happens if he hangs on? what happens if he does? ryan: then iran keeps their greatest ally in the region, he's a sponsor of terrorism,

he'll probably continue slaughtering his people. we and the world community will lose our credibility on this. look, he mentioned the -- >> moderator: so what would romney/ryan do about that credibility? ryan: well, we agree with the same red line, actually, they do on chemical weapons, but not putting american troops in other than to secure those chemical weapons. they're right about that. but what we should have done earlier is work with those freedom fighters, those dissidents in syria. we should not have called bashar assad a reformer, and we should -- >> moderator: what's your criteria? what's your criteria dc. [inaudible conversations] ryan: we should not have waited for russia to give us the green light at the u.n. they're still arming the man. iran is flying flights over iraq -- biden: and the opposition is being armed. ryan: to help bashar assad. and by the way, if we had the status of forces agreement that the vice president said he would bet his vice presidency on in iraq, we probably would have been able to prevent that, but he failed to achieve that as well.

again. >> moderator: what's your criteria for intervention? biden: yeah. ryan: in syria? >> moderator: worldwide. ryan: what is in the national interests of the american people. it's got to be in the strategic national interests of our country. >> moderator: no humanitarian? ryan: each situation will come up with its own set of circumstances, but putting american troops on the ground, that's got to be within the national security interests of the american people. >> moderator: i want to -- we're almost out of time. ryan: things like embargoes and sanctions and overflights, those are things that don't put american troops on the ground. but if you're talking about putting american troops on the ground, only in our national security interest. >> moderator: i want to move on, and i want to return home for these last few questions. this debate is, indeed, historic. we have two catholic candidates, first time on a stage such as this. and i would like to ask you both to tell me what role your religion has played in your own personal views on abortion.

please talk about how you came to that decision. talk about how your religion played a part in that, and, please, this is such an emotional issue for so many people many this country -- ryan: sure. >> moderator: please talk personally about this, if you could. congressman ryan. ryan: i don't see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. our faith informs us in everything we do. my faith informs me about how to take care of the vulnerable, of how to make sure that people have a chance in life. now, you want to ask, basically, why i'm pro-life? it's not simply because of my catholic faith. that's a factor, of course. but it's also because of reason and science. you know, i think about ten-and-a-half years ago my wife jana and i went to mercy hospital in janesville where i

was born for our seven week ultrasound for our first born child. and we saw that heartbeat. our little baby was in the shape of a bean, and to this day we have nicknamed our first born child, liza, bean. now, i believe that life begins at conception. that's why, those are the reasons why i'm pro-life. now, i understand this is a difficult of issue, and i respect people who don't agree with me on this, but the policy of a romney administration will be to oppose abortion with the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. what troubles me more is how this administration has handled all of these issues. look at what they're doing through obamacare with respect to assaulting the religious liberties of this country. they're infringing upon our first freedom, the freedom of religion by ing fringing on

catholic charities, catholic churches, catholic hospitals. our church should not have to sue our federal government to maintain religious liberties. and with respect to abortion, the democratic party used to say they want it to be safe, legal and rare. now they support it without restriction and with taxpayer funding. taxpayer funding in obamacare, taxpayer funding with foreign aid. the vice president himself went to china and said that he sympathized or wouldn't second guess their one-child policy of forced abortions and sterilizations. that, to me, is pretty extreme. >> moderator: vice president biden? biden: my religion defines who i am, and i've been a practicing catholic my whole life. and it is particularly -- it has paragraphly informed -- particularly informed my social doctrine. catholic social doctrine talks about taking care of those who can't take care of themselves, people who need help. um, with regard to, um, with

regard to abortion, i accept my church's position on abortion as a, we call a defeated doctrine. life begins at conception, that's the church's judgment, i accept it in my personal life. but i refuse to impose it on equally devout christians and muslims and jews. i just refuse to impose that on others unlike my friend here, the congressman. i do not believe that we have a right to tell other people that, women, that they can't control their body. it's a decision between them and their doctor, in my view and the supreme court. i'm not going to interfere with that. um, with regard to the assault on the catholic church, let me make it absolutely clear, no religious institution -- catholic or otherwise, including catholic social services, georgetown hospital, mercy, any hospital -- none has to either

refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception. in any insurance policy they provide. that is a fact. that is a fact. now, with regard to the way in which we differ, my frid says that, um, he -- well, i guess he accepts governor romney's position now because in the past he has argued that there was, there's rape and forcible rape, he's argued that in the case of rape or incest it was still, it would be a crime to engage in having an abortion. i just fundamentally disagree with my friend. finish. >> moderator: congressman ryan. ryan: all i'm saying is that if you believe life begins at conception, that's a principle. the policy of a romney administration is to oppose abortion with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the

mother. of now, i've got to take issue with the catholic church and religious liberty -- biden: you have. social doctrine. ryan: why would they keep suing you? it's a distinction without a difference. >> moderator: i want to go back to the abortion question here. if the romney/ryan ticket is elected, should those who believe that abortion should remain legal be worried? ryan: we don't think that unelected judges should make this decision that people through their elected representatives in reaching a consensus in society for the democratic process should make this determination. biden: the court, the next president will get one or two supreme court nominations. that's how close roe v. wade is. just ask yourself, with robert bork being the chief adviser on the court for mr. romney, who do you think he's likely to appoint? do you think he's likely to

appoint someone like scalia or someone else on the court, far right, that would outlaw planned parenthood? excuse me, outlaw abortion? i suspect that would happen. i guarantee you that will not happen. we pick two people. we pick people who are open-minded, they've been good justices. so keep an eye on the -- ryan: was there a litmus test on them? biden: there was no litmus test. we picked people with an open mind, did not come with an agenda. >> moderator: i'm going to move on to this closing question because we are running out of time. certainly no, and you've said it here tonight, that the two of you respect our troops enormously. your son has served, and perhaps some day your children will serve as well. i recently spoke to a highly-deck crated soldier who said that this presidential campaign has left him dismayed. he told me, quote: the ads are so negative, and they are all tearing down each other rather than building up the country. what would you say to that american hero about this

campaign, and at the end of the day, are you ever embarrassed by the tone? vice president biden. biden: i would say to him the same thing i say to my son who did serve a year in iraq, that we only have one truly sacred obligation as a government, and that's to equip those we send into harm's way and care for those who come home. that's the only sacred obligation we have. everything else falls behind that. i would also tell him that the fact that, um, he -- this decorated soldier you talked about -- fought for his country, that that should be honored. he should not be thrown into a category of the 47% who don't pay their taxes while he was out there fighting and not having to pay taxes and somehow not taking responsibility. i would also tell him that there are things that have occurred in

this campaign and occur in every campaign that i'm sure both of us regret anyone having said, particularly in these, these special, new groups that can go out there, raise all the money they want, not have to identify themselves and can say the most scurrilous things about the other candidate. it's, it's an abomination. but the bottom line here is i've asked that hero -- i'd ask that hero you reference to take a look at whether or not governor romney or president obama has the conviction to help lift up the middle class, restore them to where they were before this great recession hit and they got wiped out, or whether or not he's going to continue to focus on taking care of only the very wealthy, not asking them to make, pay any part of the deal to bring back the middle class the economy of this country. i'd ask him to take a look at whether the president of the united states has acted wisely in the use of force and whether or not the slipshod comments

being made by my friend -- or my governor romney serve our interests very well. um, but there are things that have been said in campaigns that i, i find not very appealing. >> moderator: congressman ryan. ryan: first of all, i'd thank him for his service to our country. we're not going to imthese devastating -- impose these devastating cuts to our military which compromises their safety. and then i would say you have a president who ran for president four years ago promising hope and change who has now turned his campaign into attack, blame and defame. you see, if you don't have a good record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone to run from. that was what president obama said in 2008, it's what he's doing right now. look at all the string of broken promises. if you like your health care plan, you can keep it. try telling that to the 20 million people who are projected to lose their health insurance

if obamacare goes through or the 7.4 million seniors who are going to lose it. or remember when he said this: i guarantee if you make less than $250,000, your taxes won't go up. of the 21 tax increases in obamacare, 12 of them hit the middle class. or remember when he said health insurance premiums will go down $2500 per family per year? or when he said i promise i'll cut the deficit in half in four years. we've had four budgets, $4 trillion deficits. a debt crisis is coming. we can't keep spending and borrowing like this. we can't keep spending money we don't have. leaders run to problems to fix problems. president obama has not even put a credible plan on the table in any of his four years that deal with this debt crisis. i passed two budgets to deal with this. mitt romney's put ideas on the table. we've got to tackle this debt crisis before it tackles us.

the president likes to say he has a plan, he gave a speech. we asked his budget office, can we see the plan? he gave us a copy of the speech. we asked the congressional budget office, tell us what president obama's plan is. they said, it's a speech. we can't estimate speeches. you see, that it's what we get in this administration, speeches. but we're not getting leadership. mitt romney is uniquely qualified to fix these problems. his lifetime of experience, his proven track record of bipartisanship, and what do we have from the president? he broke his big promise to bring people together to solve the country's biggest problems. and what i would tell him is we don't have to settle for this. biden: hope i'll get equal time. >> moderator: you will get just a few minutes here. a few seconds really. biden: the two budgets the congressman introduced have eviscerated all the things that the middle class cares about. it is not -- it will knock 19 million people off of medicare, it will kick 200,000 children

off of early education. it will eliminate the tax credit people have to be able to send their children to college. it cuts education by $450 billion. it does, it does virtually nothing except continue to increase the tax cuts for the very wealthy. and, you know, we've had enough of this. the idea that he's so concerned about these deficits, i pointed out he voted to put two wars on a credit card -- >> moderator: we're going to the closing statements in a -- ryan: not raising taxes is not cutting taxes, and by the way -- cut by 3% a year instead of 4.5% -- >> moderator: let me, let me calm down things here just for a minute, and i want to talk to you very briefly before we go to closing statements about your own personal character. if you are elected, what could you both give to this country as a man, as a human being that no one else could?

ryan ryan honesty. no one else could? there are plenty of find people who could lead this country. but what you need are people who when they say they're going to do something, they go do it. what you need are when people see problems, they offer solutions to fix those problems. we're not getting that. look, we can grow this economy fasters. that's what our five-point plan is about, it's about getting 12 million jobs, higher take-home pay, getting people out of poverty into the middle class. that means going with proven, pro-growth policy that is we know works to getting people back to work, putting ideas on the table, working with democrats. that actually works sometime -- >> moderator: vice president, getting to that issue as to what you could bring as a man, a human being, and really, you've got to keep it to 15 seconds --widewide he gets 40, i get -- >> moderator: he didn't have 40. biden: let me tell you, my record stands for itself. i never say anything i don't mean. everybody knows whatever i say i do, and my whole life has been

devoted to leveling the playing field for middle class people, giving them an even break, treating main street and wall street the same, holding the same responsibility. look at my record. it's been all about the middle class. they're the people who grow this country. we think you grow this country from the middle out, not the top down. >> moderator: okay. we now turn to the candidates for their closing statements. thank you, gentlemen, and that coin toss, again, has vice president biden starting with the -- biden: well, and let me say at the outset that i want to thank you, martha, for doing this and centre college. the fact is we're in a situation ere we inherited a god awful circumstance. um, people, we about ad to -- acted to move to bring relief to people who need the most help now, and in the process in case you haven't noticed, we have strong disagreements, but you

probably detected my frustration with their attitude about the american people. my friend says that 30% of the american people are takers, romney points out 47% of the people won't take responsibility. he's talking about my mother and father, he's talking about the places i grew up in, my neighbors in scranton and clay month. he's talking about the people that build this country. all they're looking for, martha, all they're looking for is an even shot. whenever you give them the shot, they've done it. they've done it. whenever you've leveled the playing field, they've been able to move. and they want a little bit of peace of mind. and the president and i are not going to rest until that playing field is leveled. they, in fact, have a clear shot, and they have peace of mind. until they can turn to their kid and say with a degree of confidence, honey, it's going to be okay. it's going to be okay. that's what this is all about. >> moderator: congressman ryan. ryan i want to thank you as well, martha.

danville, kentucky, centre college, and i want to thank you, joe, it's been an honor to engage in this critical debate. we face a very big choice. what kind of country are we going to be? what kind of country are we going to give our kids? president obama, he had his chance. he made his choices. his economic agenda more spending, more borrowing, higher taxes, a government takeover of health care. it's not working. it's failed to create the jobs we need. 23 million americans are struggling for work today. 15% of americans are in poverty. this is not what a real recovery looks like. you deserve better. mitt romney and i want to earn your support. we're offering real reforms for a real recovery for every american. mitt romney, his experience, his ideas, his solutions is uniquely qualified to get this job done

at a time when we have a jobs crisis in america, wouldn't it be nice to have a job creator in the white house? the choice is clear. a stagnant economy that promotes more government dependency, or a dynamic, growing economy that promotes opportunity and jobs. mitt romney and i will not duck the tough issues. and we will not blame others for the next four years. we will take responsibility, and we will not try to replace our founding principles. we will reapply our founding principles. the choice is clear, and the choice rests with you, and we ask you for your vote. thank you. >> moderator: and thank you both again. thank you very much. this concludes the vice presidential debate. please tune in next tuesday for the second presidential debate at hofstra university in new york. i'm martha raddatz of abc news, i do hope all of you go to the polls. have a good evening. [cheers and applause] ..

[applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> our live coverage of the vice presidential debate continues at the analysis reporters and editors at "politico." >> welcome to "politico" live, 90 minutes of debate between the vice presidential candidates in kentucky is over. our postdebate show just beginning. welcome c-span a niche in the late here in the washington d.c. area. anger is my colleagues, james holman, bruce romano, ginger gibson. first, let's see if we can get a consensus right here. after the presidential debate, the first in denver, it was pretty obvious there is a very clear consensus right away who won, who lost. do we have such a thing like that do you think? or is this more of a mixed judgment depending what people heard and saw and liked and

disliked. >> it's more of a mixed judgment. there were no team changing moments. i think they will be impactful. >> nobody bombs. >> do you agree? >> nobody bombs, but i think it was biden tonight. i think he controlled the night is sheer fact. he made mistakes in terms of the style. he laughed a little bit too much, interrupted a little too much. but to me, ryan looked like he was talking a memorized sound bites and biden had them on the run with medicare is certainly foreign policy stuff. >> ginger. >> the democrats were much more excited during the course of the debate. early on hearing from strategists say that i was winning and stuck to. republicans were doing a little damage control. he thought he was doing really well, but not the excitement i heard from democrats during the course of the debate.

>> james. >> joe biden was the center of the debate. the coverage is going to focus on biden just took his mannerisms, his tone. >> i think that's right. my take for what it's worth is exactly that. biden decontrolled the evening. he controlled the tempo. paul ryan, although i do believe he is somebody that's very interested in policy, the ide some policy wizard that through the force of his ideas, drive the evening. that was discounted. to me, stylistically he was foghorn leghorn. joe biden does have a lot of mannerisms, verbal tics is somebody who has been in the senate for decades. i refer to my friend here, very kind of antiquated style. but nonetheless, very much in command of the evening.

frankly, paul ryan looked like he was running for student council president. he's earnest, factual, but the timbre of his voice, his confidence, he knew he was not in command of that state. at times it seemed he was knowing that an originally trying to get back. >> he was treading water. he's a smart guy. he knows enough, but he didn't have the 40 years. >> another question people are talking about because they had it last time. the debate moderators. we have two good examples. jim lehrer, very presence on stage. his views, but these guys talk about. martha ravitz much more involved. by the way, it seems that joe biden was arguing against her. >> there was that moment where he corrected her. do you think i could've been too

much. do you think going after her? >> will see. everyone will react differently. what do you think was more effective from the voters perspective? the jim lehrer style, hanging back, or the martha raddatz style. i am an equal partner. >> tonight was much more effective because she did let them go at it. she didn't always cut them off, but she also maintained some control of the next question. she was going to get those through questions come or high water, where larry didn't get gross questions. >> ginger, everybody is talking about the smiles. we have the story on the site. twitter is a flame with comments about joe biden smile. he obviously intended to be dismissive of ryan's arguments. i can't even keep a straight face. some people thought it seemed rude, or just his tracking. >> outlasting -- he would start

laughing at? i miss answering some then. smiling, like this is a ridiculous is funding. it is with the aggressiveness is at the same thing. he was a much more aggressive. does that play well? or is it over the top? to voters and looks they use off the rails are right on point? so that last or smile could be something that works against them as well as for him. >> liberals will love it. a total base plate, getting them excited. they were disappointed last week. i think it came off as rude. the interruptions looked condescending and that he was talking down to the young kid. part of it was to dismiss him, not only is the incumbent, but the guy who's been in the senate -- >> is anything like paul ryan headlines in his head. one of the lines in joe biden's head was i'm going to mention 47%. the boss curt up by not mentioning it.

>> i think yet a lot of that it has had. there were things he was going to get to and come back at. he had a job to do and he was going to do it. just a comeback on the smile for a second. i covered joe biden for 20 years and it's actually a nervous tic, some of it. i remember interviewing him in 88, where you do these little flashes. >> it was more than not because he was being -- >> tonight it was. it's part of his demeanor he has sometimes. i do think the last scene was a bit much. you see paul ryan tried to be serious and the split screen when he was laughing. but i do think laughing aside interruption, his substance actually still blew the night away. >> was the most important substantive moment in your view? i've got my candidate in mind. >> the discussion on medicare e1 and the 47%.

but the medicare and ryan's budget had him on the run. >> james, let's hear yours. >> i did well on the domestic and stiffer than you'd expect. the first 30 minutes, both were arrested. joe biden hasn't seen the interview since may. the reason you saw the scoffing is because he hasn't been challenged since david gregory got him talking about gay marriage. both of them when the group then that in the final minutes he saw two somber candidates from a bizarrely as a contrast to the first 30 minutes, ending with somber closing statements. >> some of martha raddatz's comments, such as your faith, forced the debate in that direction. ginger, what is substantively, nevermind the nervous laughter, verbal tics come is substantively, would he think was the most important exchange? >> deer ran exchange was interesting because they gone into by the current administration stands.

and biden talking at length about whether he thinks iran will actually get a bomb. that was the first time that part of the discussion has gotten into. while romney and brian frequently talk about iran and israel and american israeli relations was not having such an engaged back and forth between the two sides as we did. >> in just a sec and i'll give you my view of at least one exchange that will echo. i thought joe biden had the better rent of the stimulus argument. you were begging for money for your district. there is a steamer in response to. it's good or los angeles origin and anaheim and my car. can you hear us? >> we can, yet. you can see ed gillespie, senator johnson from wisconsin, both teams out here trying to spin what just happened in the 90 minutes. usually i walk away from debates and i can say yes, i feel like i

know how the media will interpret. it's just that the public will say just happened. i don't know how people will sort of digest the results of this debate. on one hand, joe biden sensitively clearly had much better command of the facts of the issue, details of the issue. his 30 years in the public debate clearly showed throughout it. but his facial expressions, the passion that sometimes came off as really infectious passion could sometimes come off as a little bit angry. i don't know how people at home watching that debate will process that. i thought paul ryan in the beginning was pretty wobbly when it came to foreign policy. it was not his expertise. he's not done a lot of foreign policy on capitol hill. he's only last month up on a lot of these issues. when it hit economic issues come he started to get his stride. clearly, his sweet spot is talking about the federal

budget, medicare, when he is talking about taxes. >> with the two sides are saying here, the democrats emphasized the pacific's, hash tags on twitter are facts matter and no specifics. jim messina, the obama campaign manager came through here and all the buzz in the building was about the biden expression, the jack-o'-lantern smile, i wrote, shaking her head. like if you're watching the debate with the sound outcome certainly paul martin looked like he had the more presidential affair. wednesday he was going for and republicans tell us a biden helped him with that. republicans tell us he came up calm. he passed that test. democrats here are saying that they're back in again.

>> it is clear joe biden women with the mission to basically say you lied. i counted five different times in the first 20 minutes, where he used a variation of that, where he came short of saying malarkey or you're full of stuff as opposed to saying you lied. but in facial expressions, body posture, worse routinely whether some foreign policy, medicare, taxes, budget, defense cuts, was trying to say which are saying is not true. >> what his son had this feature in icing. eight times he referred to them as my friend. one of the mistakes the president made in his preparation was he didn't respect his opponent. i think that's a little bit channeled in the facial expression. now were getting casual viewers, seemed like it wasn't listening to what ryan was saying, which people don't like. >> i would imagine at some point barack obama was rolling his eyes because it was so much about joe biden.

if you close your eyes and realize the vice presidential date, you would've thought joe biden was defending the biden record, not the obama record. he has a tendency to talk about his own experience, his own expertise. i thought paul ryan did a good job of stepping back and saying this is what mitt romney would do, even on abortion or other issues that he might do. >> i think brian cleared the threshold of presidential, possible while were talking about he had to appear possible. >> we have to cause and say we didn't have a tm quail moment. he was embarrassed. the fact checkers are going on both sides. democrats definitely think there was a bunch of batman as on facts. our reporters think he made reference. given someone who has been a senator for 36 years, vice

president for four years easily could've happened. >> the one question he handled poorly with the debate about specifics on how you pay for tax reform plan. >> ito is coming. all you have to say, which is the truth about their plans come watch as everything is on the table including mortgage, tax reduction for homes. every corporate tax loophole is going to be on the table. and then come in the specifics of the part of negotiations of congress. for some reason he left specific suicide in a made made him seem weak. >> you want to not answer in that position. john harris just mentioned one of the really good heads of biden when he talked about the letters ran had written, asking biden one of props. they would let them bring letters then. another affected hit by biden. he went to brian for having voting for this big spending

during the bush years, including medicare prescription drug. >> you could feel that throughout the debate, but paul ran was confined by two things. one, his own personal regret in his voting record during the bush years. if he could have a do over, he would not vote for such spending as he did. secondly, he wants to have a specific debate about medicare and cutting spending and defense spending would be lumped in there and he can actually have where he differs with mitt romney on the ticket. once they were romney and ryan are very vulnerable and they have to figure out a way to explain and i don't think it's easy to explain because the math doesn't work as they talk about not cutting medicare in the short-term. they talk about keeping tax cuts essentially flat, maybe reducing the middle-class, but having a huge increase in defense spending. what is pressed throughout the debate, and he stammered because he couldn't defend it. have you pay for this and bring down the deficit? the math don't work. it undoubtedly will come up in

the next presidential debate. >> that's a great point. i hadn't thought until now, but this also as a reminder that the promise of the paul ryan pic was they would tell the american people hard truths. this is a sign they were getting ready for adult conversation. we haven't had one hard truths and i don't remember paul ryan given a hard truth tonight. he didn't say it but have to sacrifice, you'll have to bite the bullet on this. >> that's the message you would like to take to the american people, that mitt romney wouldn't take. let's give our viewers a little bit of exciting here. you probably have 30, 40 different representatives of the obama campaign and romney campaign behind us. their site members of the class, milling about getting pictures with different folks. you see senator kaufman, a top adviser to paul ryan, ed gillespie right over my shoulder, charlie black is over around the corner.

john didn't. >> item if you can see in the picture, but they all have their signs. support joe biden. this is stephanie cutter, charlie black. >> they are trying to essentially manipulate reporters. they want to spin us to shape our perceptions of the debate are interpreted. they often do in the program a lot of fact checking, they want to push back the areas. >> sometimes, i wanted to know what the obama people would say about the biden campaign. it's going to be on twitter as the number one reaction so far. as you and i were watching, i say to you, you don't want to be the one on "saturday night live" lampoon. clearly that's biden. if you were watching this debate with the sound down, paul ryan one. >> back to the gang and rosslyn.

we will try and talk to a folks who have particularly interesting insights on what happened tonight. >> hi, thanks for coming back. all right. we are now done for trade joined by white house editor, racial smoke in. we've been all talking about who we saw one, it was kind of a clear-cut debate. tell us what your take is. >> this is a biden versus biden debate. we saw biden come out very aggressive. he pressed ryan, interrupted him. he even laughed at him. the question is how will this play? partisans on both sides focused on biden's performance. the democrats loved it, republicans attacking him for being disrespectful. how will independents feel? you can be sure and cable the next two days we will see the laughs replayed again and again. i'm sure by now and letterman will work on this even as we speak. that is a real moment for the debate. biden came out with a mission,

which is to press on all the mistakes obama made including the 47 reset line. >> if you go on "politico".com, you will see a whole montage of biden facial expressions which are extremely expressive. as rachel said, we are not sure how they're going to play. i think the vice president seemed to have a growth moment on the 47%. he came out that he was going to mention that. his guy didn't do it last week. to have a clip of that we can show? >> folks, use your common sense. who do you trust on this? a man who introduced a bill that would raise $6400 a year, knowing that, passing and romney signing at, or man the president? >> that statistic was misleading. the more importantly, this is what politicians do and they don't ever record to run on. try to scare people from voting

for you. if you don't get ahead of this problem -- >> were going to move on. it's a very simple question. >> medicare and social security did so much for my own family, we will not jeopardize this program, but we have to save it. >> you are jeopardizing, changing from a guaranteed benefit to premium support. the bottom line is people have to pay more money out of their pocket in the families i know in the families that come from don't have the money to pay more. >> more for low-income people, less for high income people. >> does a very interesting exchange, but it was another 47%, so maybe we can get that up. >> odysseus lassen interruption, which we hear people talk about a lot. trying to read into what these think about their performance. republicans focus so much in the initial minutes of the debate on biden. his laugh, his demeanor.

>> it tells us they are worried he had some substance because all they are talking about on twitter, i'm talking points, on fox is that it is unprecedented, he was rude. he was not vice presidential. >> it is interesting because were talking before the debate, will there be a biden gap? i think we'll assume the gap would be verbal. it's now an expression gap if you will. at the same time, the vice president was very good oppressing ryan all his facts. this absence of debate and classic biden fashion. this is malarkey, a batch of staff. >> when they turn this around a little bit, james. we are talking about biden, whether we've remember his substance or laugh. which you remember about ryan during this whole thing? >> the effort to be human and real. what i expected from ryan, what

the biden people did is that ryan would drop numbers to be the guy with the powerpoint to did not the powerpoint. be really wonky, kind of the guy in the numbers in the weeds. and instead, ryan tried so hard that at times it was awkward to be the guy who has the friend and that the person that knows the person, when in the clip is that it's not getting social security. he talked about his friend in janesville. biden seemed ready to go after him on the numbers. so is a role reversal. biden spent a lot of numbers and statistics and ryan spent a lot of time talking about people. >> biden spoken the camera into the american people and seemed most comfortable doing that. i thought ryan seemed a little stiff in the beginning and loosened up as the debate went on. you could tell a little bit him is his first national debate. >> we have heard a lot about ryan's wackiness and how much he

knows. but as you think he knew a lot on this or that he was reaching deep to find things? i couldn't quite get a handle on it. >> we talked about the foreign policy. there was a lot of times three was rattling off information about syria, libya, afghanistan, iran, where he claimed they seem to have been rehearsed with the things he needed to know. it didn't get so much in the weeds isxpected on medicare. it was in new jersey in exchange in terms of one where biden seemed to press him on the taxes and then the moderator martha came back impressed him. with the loophole? how are you going to save? how does the math add up? instead of slipping into his default position, which is to go into those numbers, give a full line by line, you try to state the big picture. i'm not sure works for him. at some of accuse obfuscating the set of answering the question. >> i think that was an issue for

him. biden went insane he was going to be specific, i'm going to get in your face and give as many details as i can because there was this hyper urgency to head. the one mistake i thought ryan made was when he said, while jack kennedy raise taxes and cut revenues to which biden said -- [inaudible] >> you know, whatever, 15, 20 years ago, that was exactly what would untended ridiculed dan quayle for. i think we have the clip of joe biden we can show real quickly. >> and still preserve these important preferences for middle-class taxpayers. >> not mathematically possible. >> it's been done before. >> it has never been done before. >> is spent on a couple times actually. >> ronald reagan -- >> nagger jack kennedy.

[laughter] >> not a good thing to do. >> ryan didn't even know how to respond. >> one of the things we talked about before you came on as what is the most memorable soundbite or exchange in the evening that she think is going to be the lead tomorrow? >> i like the jack kennedy. biden had all of these lines, the malarkey and his first line out of the gate, say not a single thing you said is accurate. again, those are the memorable moments, but just as memorable was the laughter and the interruption. so the question is how will this come together in the coming days? >> we talked a lot before about the momentum that romney got after the debate. this debate most important about changing the momentum. to continue or hold it back. what do you think happens to the republican momentum after today?

>> i think maybe it slows down a little bit because again, we are not voting for vice presidents. but if i'm a voter in and looking and taking joe biden taking joe biden, maybe looked a little weird at times, but it's ready for prime time. and then attacked about this, too. paul ryan was a toddler when joe biden first got elected. >> as biden pointed out many times tonight. >> and john harris said, you know, he looks like he was in a college debate or high school debate. he had talking points, but didn't have the backup. so i just wonder people will look and say, you know, we have another debate on tuesday that the top of the ticket and a lot is going to hinge on that as well. >> what biden did tonight is get democrats excited again. as ginger was mentioning her e-mails, the